


To Err Is Human, To Arrrrgh Is Pirate

by sunsetmog



Category: Panic At The Disco
Genre: Baby dragons - Freeform, Hostage Situation, Kidnapping, M/M, Not Fic, Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-17
Updated: 2010-09-17
Packaged: 2017-10-31 02:29:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/338893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetmog/pseuds/sunsetmog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not!fic. In which Brendon Urie is the pirate captain of the good ship <i>Northern Downpour</i>, Jon is his trusty navigator, and Spencer is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Oh, and there are baby dragons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Err Is Human, To Arrrrgh Is Pirate

**Author's Note:**

> Not fic. Originally posted [here](http://sunsetmog-fics.livejournal.com/55995.html) in September 2010.
> 
> Warnings: Spencer is Brendon's hostage, but there is no non-con
> 
> About two years ago (possibly longer, omg), disarm_d made a post with - as far as I can remember - some story ideas, and one of them involved Spencer being pirate captain Brendon's hostage on a pirate ship, and the ensuing sexytiems. Off the back of that, I wrote a scene set after Brendon had taken Spencer back home so that Spencer wasn't his hostage anymore, and Spencer chose to come back to Brendon of his own free will. And then Spencer came on Brendon's face, the end.
> 
> Except I wasn't satisfied with that, and I wanted the backstory, of how Brendon and Spencer got to the point where they were in love with each other, when Spencer had started off as Brendon's pirate hostage. So I went back and wrote out an outline for the whole story. Then when I was done with the outline, I went back and started expanding on the outline notes, except I didn't do it in any order, and I wrote out several unconnected scenes.
> 
> Then I got fixated on the part where the baby dragons turned up, right in the middle, and in order for that to work, I had to go back and rewrite the beginning, and however much time I spent re-working the beginning, I still couldn't get over the part that I liked least about this story, which was that I hated that Brendon had taken Spencer hostage in the first place. So I left it in a file and came back to it occasionally and tried to make it work out so that it felt right that Spencer should forgive Brendon for kidnapping him. And then I left it, and I don't think I'm ever going to finish making it into a complete draft, so I'm amnestying it instead. Imagine that there's a lot more about Ashlee being an awesome pirate queen, too.
> 
> The file is in two different tenses. The outline was written in the present tense, and the parts I actually drafted out in the past tense. Occasionally they cross over. The first ten thousand words or so form basically what would have been the final draft, and aside from being unbetaed, there's not that much not-ficcy about the first half. Then the story slips back into outline notes for a while, and requires a leap of faith before the next proper draft part - Spencer has to essentially forgive Brendon for kidnapping him, in order that the rest of the fic work out. The final scene is the one that I wrote first, as a porny stand-alone.
> 
> Thank you to those people who've read this over at various points in the past two years, and have offered advice.

~*~

(Prologue)

The _Northern Downpour_ was anchored in a narrow inlet just up the coast from Port Haven. 

Brendon hadn't wanted to stop at all, but the ship was in dire need of repair and they were running short of food, so he'd taken a deep breath and ordered his crew to lay anchor. They needed cloth for sails and one of the masts had splintered in a storm the previous week and needed reinforcing. At a push they could have made it up the coast and into Fonseca, where at least they could have laid low without worry, but Brendon knew his crew and they were looking exhausted and hungry. 

"You'll have to go ashore without us, Tom," Brendon said, tiredly, leaning over the table and running his fingers over the map. Port Haven wasn't a particularly big port, nor was there a large naval presence, but neither Brendon nor Jon could afford to be recognized there. 

Tom nodded, shooting Jon a sidelong look. He was Brendon's boatswain, and the most senior member of the crew aside from Brendon and Jon. "Okay." 

Brendon nodded and looked back down at his list, trying hard not to notice the pleading looks Jon was sending in his direction. He added a couple more items to the bottom of the list.

"Brendon -" Jon started. 

"No." Brendon said. "No, no, _no_." He blotted his ink clumsily, shaking his head. "You are not going ashore, and that's _final_." 

"Come on," Jon sighed. "The chances of me being recognized are really fucking small, Brendon. I'll have Tom with me, I'll wear a really big, stupid hat and, and, I'll talk with an accent -"

Brendon rolled his eyes. "I'm sure you'll be a master of disguise, Jon, but sending you ashore is a pretty stupid risk. You remember my brothers, right? Big? Tall? Still pretty angry with us? My parents? An _arrest warrant_?"

"That was a long time ago," Jon pointed out, leaning over and slinging an arm around Brendon's shoulder. "Come on, Brendon. No one will notice me."

Brendon sighed, ignoring Jon's best puppy-dog eyes. "This is a really stupid idea." 

"It'll be fine," Jon told him, with a grin. 

~*~

Brendon had been born and brought up on the sea; he'd grown up on his parents' ship, sailing from port to port with his preacher father and missionary mother. They held services on the deck and in hastily erected tents just outside of towns and villages up and down the islands. Brendon's first memory was of walking up and down the rows of the congregation, offering the collection plate up. Sometimes, if the crowd was big enough, his brothers would join him, splitting the rows up so they each took a share. For the most part, though, the church-goers were small in number, and Brendon did the job by himself. 

He doesn't ever remember Jon not being there, although Brendon's parents didn't bring Jon on board until he was just short of his seventh birthday. Jon's parents had been short of money and had offered him up as a cabin boy as a way of saving on his keep. 

They'd grown up inseparable, sneaking up on deck in the middle of the night and lying down on Brendon's shabby blanket, staring up at the stars and making up story after story of high adventure. They were going to be smugglers, they were going to be pirates, they were going to be explorers and adventurers and knights. Brendon stubbornly ignored his parents when they suggested that he not be so friendly with Jon; they sneaked around and whispered in corners and Jon avoided Brendon's brothers as best he could. Jon was only a cabin boy, after all. 

The fragile peace had lasted until Brendon was just short of his fifteenth birthday, when Brendon had overheard his brothers planning on swapping Jon for a younger boy the next time they were in port. "He's not a _slave_ ," Brendon had hissed at them, "he's not something you can buy and sell," and he and Jon had sneaked ashore in the dead of night, clutching only a handful of food, Brendon's blanket and—unbeknownst to Jon, because it was wrapped up tightly in Brendon's shirt—the contents of the collection plate from their last round of services. 

The warrant for Jon's arrest had been issued soon afterwards. 

~*~

The boat set off for Port Haven at first light, Brendon leaning over the side of the ship and waving as Jon, Tom, his gunner, Brent and two gnarled old sailors that Brendon had inherited along with the ship, Archie and Duncan, headed for port. 

"Want me to get you anything, Brendon?" Jon yelled after him—which totally meant that Jon failed at being stealthy, but whatever. 

Brendon rolled his eyes. "See if you can find me a monkey," he shouted back. 

Jon laughed, the sound lost on the early morning breeze, and raised his hand in salute. 

Brendon waved back until the boat was out of sight.

He spent the rest of the morning sat on deck, updating the ship's log book and taking the opportunity to unlace his boots and wiggle his toes in the sunlight. Around him, the rest of the crew busied themselves fixing what rents they could in the sails, swabbing down the deck and cleaning down the guns. Brent had left some of the crew down below deck, inventorying the powder and the cannon balls and the weaponry. It was all repetitive, easy work and the mood on board was lazy and relaxed. The crew sang as they got on with their jobs, Brendon leading them in a round of _fifty green bottles_ when he got bored of updating the log. His journal lay open beside him, splashes of ink across the page where he'd dropped his pen.

After lunch—which he ate by himself, perched on the brow of the ship, feet dangling over the side—he sighed and headed below deck to pore over Jon's navigational charts. He hummed as he worked, singing along under his breath to the songs his crew were belting out on deck. He wasn't particularly worried; the _Northern Downpour_ had only recently come into his hands and this was their first time in the Gulf of Amapalla since he and Jon had run away together. Jon was capable and clever and good at looking after himself. The warrant for his arrest was years old and his supposed crime small, since Brendon refused to believe that anyone could take the charge of kidnapping seriously - Brendon had been almost an adult. Brendon sighed. He knew his crew were unlikely to draw attention to themselves. 

He was half way through polishing up his boots when he first thought he could discern the sound of oars; he was half way through pulling his boots back on, hastily lacing them up when he heard the first shouts and the sound of running feet. 

He was buckling his belt and reaching for his cutlass when Tom appeared in his doorway, out of breath and white-faced. 

"What is it?" Brendon asked, but he already knew. 

"They've got him," Tom told him, white faced and out of breath. "They've arrested Jon." 

~*~

(One. Port Haven)

It took them four days to organize a rescue mission. It had been four days of Brendon shouting orders and barely sleeping and disappearing ashore as soon as the sun had begun to rise. It had been four days of trying to escape detection and establish a plan that wasn't going to get Brendon or Jon or his crew killed; it had been four days of Brendon frantic and desperate with worry. 

Jon was being held in the prison cells beneath the port offices. He'd been arrested by a navy officer with an eye on the reward money; Brendon's parents had put up a prize after Brendon and Jon had absconded. The port offices adjoined the residence of the governor, George Ross, and Brendon planned his rescue to coincide with a ball Ross was throwing. It would be the perfect opportunity to slip into the grounds without detection; there would be plenty of people around and Brendon and his crew could pass by unnoticed. 

The Governor's parties were notorious; Brendon remembered his parents talking about them in low, scandalized voices whenever they came close to Port Haven. 

When Brendon and his crew hid in the trees at the edge of the grounds, there was music and loud chatter blaring out of the open windows, candles and chandeliers pouring light out of every window. 

"Come on," Tom said, already standing up and making to leave the shadow of the shrubbery. His skin was pale and glistening with sweat.

"Wait," Brendon said, tightly, grabbing onto Tom's sleeve. It was a minute before Tom's eyes lost their fevered, desperate look and he was able to meet Brendon's gaze and stop straining against his grip. 

"Sorry, Captain," Tom said, swallowing. His skin was taut beneath Brendon's fingers. 

Brendon nodded. "We wait," he said, carefully. "We go on my order and not before. Understand?" 

His crew nodded, Tom's eyes never leaving Brendon's. Brendon took a deep breath and turned back to the bright lights of the Governor's party, waiting. 

Brendon had tried to feign ignorance about Jon and Tom. He was sure he should at least _try_ and discourage his boatswain from spending his nights in Jon's cabin, but he never had. He couldn't see the harm in their relationship, not really, because he liked to see Jon smile and Tom seemed to, you know, help with that. It wasn't like his crew was rebelling because their boatswain was absent half the time, and Brendon couldn't think of any other reason to drag the two of them apart. If it meant that he got to spend less time with Jon, well, that wasn't a good enough reason to upset the balance. 

He sighed, gaze darting from one side of the grounds to the other. He wanted to leave their rescue till as late as possible, when the guests would be too inebriated to worry about the sounds of scuffle coming from the port offices. 

"Come on," Brendon said, after a while, his face growing graver as he worked out the chances of them passing through the gardens unseen. "Time to go."

Brendon had brought along seven members of his crew, including Tom. They were dressed up—as much as they were able—as party goers, their barely concealed knives and their pistols the only clue to their intentions. Normally, Brendon would have reveled in the opportunity to dress up but right now he couldn't think of anything other than Jon. 

Brendon and Jon hadn't been apart since they'd left Brendon's parents' ship - not when they'd worked a smuggling route up and down the islands, nor when they'd started working with the Ways on the _Black Parade_. When they'd taken the _Northern Downpour_ from people traffickers, Gerard had given the ship to Brendon for his own. Jon had come with him as his Sailing Master and together they'd sailed the high seas in the _Northern Downpour_ for just over a year. Brendon wasn't sure he could go on if he didn't get Jon back. 

Jon was his best friend, his _family_ , the only person he could rely on and the very thought of losing him was enough for Brendon to turn to his crew and say "You know the rules. Shoot to maim, not to kill?" His crew nodded, and Brendon shook his head. "Forget the rules," he told them, fiercely. His crew had powder and weaponry and intent, and they needed Jon. His gunner had the powder that he hoped they wouldn't need to get into the cells. "Do whatever you have to do to get yourselves out of there. You get out at whatever cost, okay? We get Jon and we get the hell out of there."

"Captain-"

"Quiet," Brendon hissed. "We go on my count."

~*~

Brendon had posted scouts outside the Governor's residence for the past two days and nights; he hoped he knew the workings of the port offices possibly better than the Governor did. There were three guards on duty overnight, one manning the outer office and the other two the inner and the cells. Port Haven was only a small port, equipped with neither the manpower or the facilities to deal with serious crimes. Jon had only been safe this long because the judge only came into town once a fortnight. He was due the following day. 

Brendon had to move fast, and he had to move now. 

~*~

The port offices looked quiet in comparison to the Governor's residence. Lanterns burned in only two windows by the courtyard, the outer and inner offices, as expected. Brendon's men were quiet, but they weren't quiet enough; Brendon's whole body was on edge and every sound was echoed and magnified in his head. 

They went in by the front door, surprising the single guard on duty there. Tom—primed and ready—took him down quickly and silently with a single blow to the head with the butt of his pistol. They couldn't muffle the sound of him falling though, and the noise clearly disturbed the men in the inner office. As his men pushed through the doorway, Brendon heard the sound of chairs being pushed away from the table and raised voices. He followed his men in. 

There were more people in the room than there should have been; for the briefest of moments there was a freeze frame as Brendon took in the scene—four men, clearly disturbed in the middle of a card game. There were matches scattered across the table, four scattered hands of cards and a bottle of port spilling across the table top. 

After that, things happened quickly. Brendon's men had each of the guards covered, pistols pointed at their heads. The two young men that Brendon hadn't expected to be there were pushed up against the wall, one with a knife pressed to his throat, the other with a pistol to his temple. 

"No one is going to get hurt," Brendon said, carefully, "if you co-operate. I want the keys to the cells."

"Like _fuck_ we're going to co-operate," one of the young men spat, the one with the pistol to the head. 

"Spencer," the other young man hissed—the one with the extravagantly folded cravat and the knife to his throat. "Just shut up." 

"You should listen to your friend, Spencer," Brendon told him. "I'm not going to hurt anyone if I don't have to." He unsheathed his knife, pressing the point into the tip of his finger, like he'd once seen a real pirate do, one night when he'd still been aboard _The Black Parade_. Blood pearled across the blade, and both of the guards blanched. "But if I have to," he went on, trying to ignore the frantic beating of his heart and the worried look in the eyes of his crew, "then I will." Brendon hoped against all hope that he didn't have to. He was both morally and ethically against bloodshed, whatever he may have told his crew, but he wanted Jon back and he would do whatever it took to get him. "Now. About those keys."

Nobody said anything. Brendon rolled his eyes. "Come on, guys, you can do better than that. Tell me, _over my dead body_ at least." 

Still nobody said anything. "No? Nothing?" Brendon sighed. "Tom, see if you can get the keys out of them." 

Tom unsheathed his knife. 

"Now, I wasn't going to hurt you," Brendon went on, "But I really can't speak for Tom here. Are you sure, Spencer's friend, that you don't want to tell me where the keys are?" 

"Are you pirates?" Spencer's friend said, finally. He was pale, the knife pressed close against his neck. "Because you're dressed pretty fine for pirates." He was brave though, staring Brendon right in the eye. Brendon wished he didn't have to do this. 

"Ryan," Spencer hissed. 

"We just want our friend back," Brendon said, carefully. "We don't want to hurt anyone, we just want our friend back."

Spencer narrowed his eyes, ignoring the pistol pointed at his temple. "Fucking pirates," he said. 

"Tom," Brendon said. 

"Yes, Captain?" 

Brendon pointed at Spencer. Inside, he was trembling. _Jon_. "Tie his hands up. Bring him with us."

Tom tied up Spencer's hands, and didn't meet Brendon's eye. 

They found the keys to the cells attached to the belt of the second guard; Brendon held his pistol to Spencer's head while Tom disappeared off to the cells with Brent to get Jon. Brendon tried not to balk at what it was that they were doing; he'd never held a gun to anyone's head before and he'd never had anyone tied up who didn't really deserve it. He never wanted to have to do this again. 

The clock on the wall was ticking by and they were running desperately short of time. Brendon stopped himself from tapping his foot in frustration; every second that they were here, they were closer to detection, closer to imprisonment and probable death. 

Ryan was eyeing him with interest. "Really," he said, "Are you pirates?"

Brendon shrugged awkwardly, one eye on the stairway down to the cells. He didn't technically like the term _pirate_ , although it perhaps better described them than, say, _buccaneer_. "Sort of," he said, distractedly. 

"Are you really going to hurt us?" Ryan asked. 

For someone with a knife up against his throat, Ryan was remaining remarkably calm. Brendon bristled. 

"Not if we don't have to," Brendon said. He really was against unnecessary violence, but he'd participate if he had to. If it meant the difference between having Jon and not. 

His pistol was leaving a pale, red indent on Spencer's temple. Brendon tightened his grip on Spencer's arm, feeling the tremble and the tautness of his muscle beneath his palm. Spencer eyed him with hatred. 

There were footsteps on the stair. 

"Got him," Tom said, leading Jon into the room. Jon was pale and gaunt, dirt and what may have been dried blood stains on his temple and his cheek. He was massaging his wrists, bruises in uneven circles where the handcuffs had held. 

"Still got those cuffs?" Brendon asked, the shake in his voice barely perceptible. 

Tom nodded, his eyes narrowed. He had one hand cupping Jon's elbow; Brendon couldn't meet Jon's eyes. They'd come so close to losing him—Brendon wanted to hurt everyone who had been party to putting that haunted look on Jon's face. 

"Put the cuffs on this one," Brendon said, nudging at Spencer with his pistol. He was sweating; white-hot sparks of anger burning at his fingertips, twisting down his spine. 

Ryan's eyes widened. 

_See what it feels like,_ he thought, and his mind was afire. 

Jon gasped a breath. "No -"

Brendon ignored him, turning back to his men. "Make sure the guards are tied up, and that one there." He pointed at Ryan, his hands shaking. "Gag them all and put them in the cells. Then follow us back to the ship." He turned to go, dropping his pistol from Spencer's temple now he was handcuffed. "We're taking him with us," he said, pointing at Spencer. 

Brendon thought, _Jon Jon Jon Jon Jon_ and he ignored the trembling pulse of his heartbeat and the worried faces of his crew. 

~*~

Back on board the ship, Brendon was cold as ice and angry to boot. "Make ready to leave," he ordered, "and put the prisoner in the brig." 

Brendon refused to make eye contact with Jon, or Tom, or even Spencer. 

~*~

(Two. At Sea. Jon.)

They'd been back on the ship for over twenty four hours; Port Haven was nothing but a dark-edged memory for all of them, the cold, dank smell of the cells taking on the shape of a bad dream for Jon. The crew seemed fearful, quiet and awkward and hard-working, keeping their eyes on their tasks and not looking at their captain. 

Brendon hadn't slept. Jon barely recognized him; his eyes were cold and his shoulders tight and drawn. His hands were clenched into fists and all Jon could think about was the sheer, burning fury on his face as Tom had brought Jon up from the cells. Anger burned in the twist of his skin, the dark of his eyes, and Jon shivered. 

Jon had always loved the lazy, warm mood on board the _Northern Downpour,_ but there was no sign of that now. He was angry himself; angry at Brendon for risking everything to come rescue him, even angrier at him for risking everything and _more_ by kidnapping Spencer at the same time. 

He'd been down to the brig to see him; Spencer was locked up, curled up in the hammock and refusing to eat the food that Brendon had had the cook send down. 

Jon hated everything. Spencer hadn't deserved any of this; he'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time—just like Jon had been—only Spencer's punishment had ended up being so much worse than Jon's had. 

"What did you think you were doing?" Jon asked, barging into Brendon's cabin without knocking. Brendon was sitting at the table, the ship's log book open in front of him. He wasn't writing anything. 

Brendon looked up. "I was rescuing you," he said, not quite managing to meet Jon's eye. He was trembling, Jon could see the way he was gripping the table edge, his knuckles white. "I was saving you." 

Jon couldn't read the look in Brendon's eyes. 

"You stole a man from his _home_ , Brendon," Jon told him fiercely, his fists clenching by his sides. "You took him from everything he knows and you did it on a _whim_ , Brendon. I just- you know what that was like for me -"

"- You were a _kid_. That was different, your parents -"

"It's not different," Jon said, tightly. He looked at Brendon, wondering when it was that Brendon had become somebody he barely recognized anymore. "You've locked him in a prison cell because of _what,_ Brendon? Because he told you he didn't like pirates? You held a pistol to his head, what the _fuck_."

"We're not bad people." Brendon told him in a low voice. He looked down, fingers tapping against the table edge. 

Jon looked at him, his eyes dark. No hint of a smile played on his face. "We are now. You've made us bad. You've made us wanted men. I just. I don't even know you anymore."

Brendon looked at him for a long time, his eyes bright. Jon just couldn't recognize the expression in them. Brendon didn't say anything; he looked tired and sad. 

Jon swallowed tightly. He'd never argued with Brendon, not really. He'd bickered and jostled and elbowed and fought over the last bite of pie, but this, this angry, cold conversation—this was new. "I can't be near you right now," Jon said, after it became clear Brendon wasn't going to say anything. 

Brendon nodded jerkily. 

Jon made sure not to let the door slam on his way out. 

~*~

He took a plate of food down to Spencer in the brig. "Here," he said, softly, putting the plate on the floor by the chair. Spencer was on his side in the hammock, facing the wall. He didn't move. "I've brought you some proper food," Jon told him. 

Spencer didn't move. "Oh, good," he said, his voice muffled in his shirt. "Thank you ever so much."

Jon swallowed. "There's some bread, too. And rum."

"Forgive me for not thinking you wonderful," Spencer told him. 

When they'd brought Spencer on board he'd still been in cuffs, his hands fixed behind his back. They'd gagged him as they left the Governor's residence, to stop him making himself heard. He'd stumbled as they'd walked him across the deck, falling down onto his knees without being able to put his hands out to stop himself. He'd cut his chin open, and the spots of dried blood were still evident on his shirt. Brendon hadn't said anything as Jon had peeled off Spencer's gag or taken off the cuffs. 

When Jon had turned around afterwards, Brendon had disappeared into his cabin. 

~*~

"Are you okay?" Jon asked, hesitantly, nudging the food across the floor and nearer to where Spencer was lying. "You're not sick, or, or hurt, are you?"

Spencer shook his head, still not rolling over. "No." 

"You should eat something then," Jon told him. "Keep your strength up."

"Right," Spencer said, and Jon was pretty sure he could _hear_ Spencer rolling his eyes. 

"Brendon's not normally -" Jon started. 

Spencer rolled over and stared at Jon. "He's not normally what?"

"He's a good guy," Jon said. "Normally. He's just a bit screwed up -"

Spencer blinked. "Can you even hear yourself? He's a pirate. _You're_ a pirate. You don't get to be the good guys. You get to be the guys who kidnap me, who take me away from my best friend and my family and lock me up. You really don't get to explain yourselves."

Jon swallowed again. Spencer was right. He was _right_ , and there was nothing about this whole situation that made Jon feel good about himself. "You should eat your food. Before it gets cold."

 

Jon went into his cabin and shut the door with a bang. After a while, Tom came in, peeling off his boots and curling up along Jon's back. 

"You should have seen Brendon when he heard you'd been arrested," Tom said, after a while. He kissed the back of Jon's neck. 

Jon swallowed. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. His face, Jon. He was fucking terrified, Jesus, I think he just broke right there in front of me. But after that, after that he never let it show. He just came on board and shut the rest of us up and started planning your rescue." Tom stopped to kiss underneath Jon's ear and down his jaw. "He kept the rest of us from going crazy, but I'm pretty sure that underneath, he'd never been so scared in his life." 

Jon curled his fingers in Tom's, leaning down and kissing Tom's wrist. "He's scaring me, Tom. Taking Spencer like that- that's not Brendon."

"I know." Tom pressed closer, nudging his knee in between Jon's. "Cut him some slack though, yeah? He did the wrong thing and he doesn't know how to fix it. People do stupid things when they're scared. I don't think he knows what to do when you're not around."

Jon closed his eyes and squeezed Tom's hand tighter. 

~*~

(Three. Brendon.)

Brendon wasn't sleeping. 

The atmosphere on board ship was seeping in and bleeding somewhere under his skin; he was jumpy and on edge and he couldn't seem to relax enough to sleep. The crew's mood reflected his—they hated having a prisoner on board as much as Brendon did. Some of them had been sailors as long as they could remember, and they'd worked alongside some of the toughest pirates in living history, but they'd gotten used to working with Brendon. They were used to the easy mood on board ship, the treasure hunting, the rum runs, the singing. 

Brendon was used to that too. He was used to laughing, to talking with Jon, to sharing his telescope and poring over Jon's navigational books and being able to share the responsibility of running a ship this size with his best friend. He couldn't do it on his own; everything he knew was falling apart around his ears and he really didn't know what to do to make it better. 

All he knew was that whenever he closed his eyes, he saw Spencer's face, saw the look in his eyes when he'd said, _fuck pirates_. He found himself creeping down to the brig late at night, when the lanterns on the deck had been extinguished and only a skeleton crew kept the ship on course. He stood just outside the open door, watching Spencer sleep. He grew used to the gentle, rhythmic rise of his shoulders, the soft sounds he made as he shifted position. 

It had been almost a week and Spencer had fast begun to lose the look of a gentleman; his breeches were grubby and his shirt stained and rumpled. He had more than the beginnings of a beard, and his hair fell into his eyes, greasy and lank. 

Brendon watched him because he didn't know how to fix this, how to put things right so that Spencer was safe and off the ship and back home again, so that he'd never been Brendon's prisoner, so that Jon would speak to him again. So that things could go back to the way they'd been. 

Brendon didn't know how to put things right. 

~*~

Brendon was up late, sitting at his desk in his cabin. He rubbed at his eyes, trying to figure out how they'd ended up off course the last few days. He knew why; he knew that the _Northern Downpour_ needed both its captain and its sailing master working together, but Brendon didn't think that Jon was going to start forgiving him any time soon, so there had to be a way they could get by in the meantime. 

He sighed. He'd done the calculations, and he'd been through Jon's notes but something was wrong _somewhere_ , because they weren't where they were supposed to be. They had a pick-up to make, and they needed the revenue, so Brendon had to figure out the mistake and he had to figure it out pretty quickly, because otherwise they'd miss the rendezvous. 

The ship was quiet; the weather wasn't particularly in their favor and they weren't making any significant progress because of the lack of wind. Occasionally he heard the muffled call of one of his crew to another, but other than that, there was only the rhythmic roll of the sea and the creak of timbers. 

He dropped his head to the table, closing his eyes. He was tired—more tired than he could ever remember being—and every bone in his body ached. 

~*~

Brendon didn't think he'd fallen asleep, but he was startled upright by a loud noise from the deck. He could hear the raised voices of some of his sailors; he wondered if they'd been stealing the rum again, if they were drunk. He yawned, rolling his shoulders, and pulled on his coat quickly. Despite the lack of breeze, it would still be cold up on deck with only the moon for light. He was a fair captain, and let his crew push the boundaries more than he perhaps should, but being drunk and raucous in the middle of the night couldn't go unnoticed. 

~*~

His crew weren't drunk. 

Or rather, they were, but that wasn't all they were. Three of Brendon's men were standing around the mainmast, their cutlasses and blades out, and in between them and the mast stood Spencer. 

He had his hands tied behind his back and even by the light of the moon Brendon knew that his legs were bleeding. The three men were forcing him to jump their cutlasses, a nightmare of a sailor's hornpipe as Spencer tried to avoid their outstretched blades as they laughed and jeered and waved their cutlasses at his legs. It was a cruel dance; the blades caught at Spencer's legs whenever he moved. 

Spencer—white faced and swaying—was trying to avoid the tips of the blades as the deck rolled beneath his feet. He could barely keep his balance, but the alternative was falling on to the blades. Blood ran down his legs in tiny ribbons, his calves were covered in cuts and pinprick scratches from the edges of the blades. 

Brendon was all of a sudden, angrier than he had ever been, fierce and still and dangerous. 

"Stop that," he shouted, striding across the deck and pulling the men away from his prisoner. His cry alerted the rest of the ship to his presence, and suddenly there was noise from all across the ship as sailors rose from their hammocks. 

Spencer—pale and wide-eyed—stumbled backwards into the mast. He would have fallen if it weren't for Brendon reaching out and catching his elbow. Brendon shouldered most of his weight, sliding his arm around Spencer's back and letting Spencer lean against his side. 

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" Brendon snapped, staring at the three sailors before him. His anger felt white-hot; sparks of fury darting up and down his spine. Stealing alcohol was one thing—and they had been doing; Brendon could smell the rum and see their glazed eyes—but this, this abject cruelty was another thing entirely. 

He tried to find shame, find fear on their faces but all he could see was alcohol and greed. 

"Cap'n-"

"Actually," Brendon ground out, forcing himself to concentrate on Spencer and not on the disgraced sailors in front of him. "I don't care. You disgust me." His hand tightened around Spencer's waist; he had to get him down and off the deck and into his cabin so he could check him over. The smell of the alcohol was overpowering; he shook his head and wondered how long they'd been siphoning off the rum. Men didn't tend to get this drunk as a one-off, thievery tended to start small and grow. "Tom-" he looked around, trying to pick out his boatswain in the darkness. A cloud had moved in front of the moon. 

Tom was busily doing up his shirt and buckling his belt. He'd come up from the sailors' quarters, for once, and Brendon nodded at him, bowing under Spencer's lolling weight. 

"See that these three men be put in the brig," Brendon said shortly. He thought he was growing pink in the face from shouldering Spencer's weight. "I'll deal with them in the morning. Chain them up." Brendon shifted Spencer's weight a little. "Are you okay to walk?" he asked Spencer. 

Spencer swallowed. He was pale, Brendon knew, and bleeding. He was barely focusing on Brendon's face. 

"You," Brendon said, sharply, pointing at the nearest sailor, Archie, a gnarled old man, born of the sea. "Help me to get him to my cabin. Quickly."

~*~

Between the two of them they half carried Spencer below deck to Brendon's cabin; Brendon carefully undid the rope that tied Spencer's wrists together, rubbing his thumb over the angry red marks the ropes had left across Spencer's skin before they helped him down into a chair. 

Spencer's head lolled to one side, and now he had the lantern Brendon could see that Spencer's legs were covered in cuts. Brendon's skin burnt with barely-contained fury. They'd obviously been up there making him jump their cutlasses for quite a while. 

"Christ," Brendon managed, dropping to his knees with a bowl of water and a bottle of alcohol to clean the cuts. Brendon didn't have a ship's surgeon and—like most of his crew—Brendon had learnt to bandage and clean wounds to the best of his ability. He was untidy and rough, but he knew what he was doing. 

"Need a hand, Captain?" Archie asked. 

Brendon shook his head, not taking his eyes off Spencer's bloody legs. It was hard to make out the depth of the cuts because of the amount of blood. "No, Archie. Thank you." He nodded towards the door. "Go see if Tom needs any help getting those men into the brig. Tell Tom I'll see him in my cabin at four bells."

"Right you are," Archie said, touching his hand to Spencer's shoulder. "Captain." 

Brendon kneeled closer and started to clean away the blood from Spencer's cuts. There were a lot of them, but at first glance, it appeared that Spencer had been lucky. None of them seemed particularly deep and the bleeding seemed mostly superficial. Brendon swallowed down a deep breath and curled his hand around Spencer's ankle, wiping gently at the blood. 

Spencer flinched every time Brendon brushed one of the cuts, but he never took his eyes off Brendon's face, staring straight at him in silence. 

"This might hurt," Brendon said, after a couple of minutes. He'd finished wiping the blood away and was getting the alcohol ready to pour into the cuts to clean them. He'd seen men die of blood poisoning, and he wasn't about to let Spencer be one of them. 

Spencer's face contorted in pain as the alcohol hit the cuts; he hissed in a breath, swaying, his face going even paler in the shadow of the lantern light. 

"Almost there," Brendon told him, gently cleaning each of the remaining cuts. 

He was just finishing up Spencer's left leg when the door burst open and Jon walked in, half dressed and in the middle of doing up his shirt. Brendon froze, just for a moment, but Jon just looked at the two of them and came to kneel beside Brendon. 

"I'll help," Jon said, without looking at Brendon or Spencer. 

Brendon nodded, and passed Jon the alcohol and the bowl. Brendon was pleased that none of the cuts looked too serious; he still wanted to bandage Spencer's legs even so, though. He knew how easy it was to open up a cut again, once it looked like it was on its way to healing, and he wasn't going to have that happen here. Not if he could help it. He also thought that Spencer's luck had mostly stemmed from the sailors being too drunk to properly inflict the cruelty they'd probably meant to; he clenched his fists and swore to himself they'd be properly punished. 

He worked alongside Jon in silence, not sure if this meant they were friends again. Above them, Spencer watched them without a sound, his face still pale. 

Once they had finished up, Brendon said, "You should take Spencer to the empty cabin, Jon. There should be some clothes in the trunk in there that uh, Spencer can change into when he wakes up." 

Brendon busied himself with the bloody cloths and the water, taking them over to his bureau and refusing to look at either Jon or Spencer. The cabin he spoke of adjoined Brendon's, but it had stood empty ever since Brendon and Jon had taken over the _Northern Downpour_. They'd thought about offering it to Tom, for a while, but a boatswain was needed down with the crew. There was no one in seniority between Tom and Brendon and Jon on the crew, so it had stood empty ever since. 

"Okay," Jon said, carefully, from behind him. 

Brendon didn't turn around, not when Jon was helping Spencer to his feet, nor when they were stumbling out the door. 

After they were gone, Brendon slid down the wall, sinking down to a sitting position and burying his head in his hands. When Jon came back a few minutes later, Brendon couldn't look up. 

Jon came and sat down next to him, nudging Brendon's knee with his own. 

Brendon swallowed. "What if they'd killed him, Jon, it would have been my fault, all my fault -"

"Brendon -" Jon started.

"God, Jon," Brendon interrupted. "I'm so sorry, I'm so fucking sorry. It's just- I was just. When I found out they'd got you, I'd never been so scared. I thought I wasn't going to get you out in time, that you were going to die and it was going to be my fault. I just don't know how to get on without you and I know I should have been relieved when I saw you but I wasn't, I was so angry that I'd let it get that far, that I'd put you in that position, that you looked like that because of _me_ -"

"Me getting arrested wasn't your fault, Brendon."

"The arrest warrant should be for _me_ , Jon, you know that. I stole the collection plate, not you -"

"- And I begged you to let me go ashore even though I knew of the danger. It wasn't your fault."

"Spencer is, though." Brendon shrugged. "I can't even explain _why_. I was just, terrified and angry and he was _there_ and he hated us. I'm sorry, Jon. I'm really, really sorry. I don't know how to make it better."

Jon swallowed, loudly, and then rested his head against Brendon's. "You did good tonight, Bden." 

"Not good enough," Brendon told him, softly. "Is Spencer okay?" 

Jon shrugged. "Shook up. He'll be okay. What are you going to do to the men in the brig?"

Brendon shook his head. "I don't know yet." His head hurt just thinking about it; what drove men to inflict pain like that for _fun_?

"Make them walk the fucking plank," Jon said, savagely. 

Brendon closed his eyes. "Tom's coming to see me at four bells," he said. "I'll decide then."

Jon rested his head against Brendon's shoulder. "Thank you," he said, quietly. "For coming to rescue me. I never said."

Brendon swallowed awkwardly. "Yeah," he said. He needed to get down to the brig and see the men who had done this to Spencer. He needed to look them in the fucking eye and see if they could hold his gaze. 

~*~

The three men Brendon had locked up in the brig were crew members that he'd inherited along with the ship. The _Northern Downpour_ had been a Spanish privateer at one point or another, but it had been taken by men who had made their living trafficking people. 

Brendon and Jon had been working alongside the pirate Ways on _The Black Parade_ when they'd heard tell of the people traffickers; rumors were flying through all the ports and taverns and villages, rumors of a gang of men who took people from their beds, leaving nothing but empty dwellings behind them. Rumor spoke of a village decimated in a night. 

People were beginning to live their lives in fear, fear for being stolen from their homes at night, and the ports were becoming steadily harder to lay anchor in. It was making it harder and harder for an honest pirate to make his trade.

It was Frank, the first mate on _The Black Parade_ , who had managed to uncover details of the crew working the trafficking ship; Brendon and Jon and Gerard and Frank had sat up after that, night after night, trying to plan the capture of the ship. Bob—the best gunner on the seas—had worked out a plan with Gerard, and Mikey—Gerard's brother and the ship's navigator—had a rough idea of where they might catch up with the ship. 

They'd caught up with the traffickers late one afternoon; it had been Brendon's first battle and secretly, he fervently hoped it would be his last. He'd seen people die. The memory of the sound of the cannons still woke him up sometimes, late in the night. 

Brendon had led the first charge across to the deck of the ship that would later become the _Northern Downpour_ , Jon closing up the rear. They'd all fought, even Mikey, who was categorically against violence of any sort. They'd all fought, and they'd all been injured. Ray had been the worst hit, taking a pistol shot to his leg. He still walked with a limp. 

It had been a long battle—made longer by the change in the weather and the driving rain—but in the end, Gerard and Brendon and Jon and the others had won out. They freed the prisoners—some of them choosing to stay and work for Gerard—and imprisoned the crew. Some of the crew maintained that they had been press ganged into working for them, and Gerard—after interviewing each of them—had chosen to believe them. 

Gerard had awarded the captured ship to Brendon, and after Brendon had checked with Frank and Mikey and Ray and Bob that they really didn't want it, he and Jon had renamed it the _Northern Downpour_ and set about making it their own. Some of the freed prisoners came with them, and so did some of Gerard's crew and the press-ganged crew members. 

And now Brendon had three members of his crew locked in the brig, charged with releasing a prisoner, stealing alcohol and inflicting cruel punishment on an innocent man. 

The irony wasn't lost on Brendon.

~*~

Brendon prided himself on being a fair captain. He'd learnt all he knew from working with Patrick and Ashlee and with Gerard, all fair captains with good crews. He couldn't remember any of them ever dealing with such blatant cruelty from their own crew, though, and the thought of what Spencer must have gone through caused Brendon to clench his fists and narrow his eyes. 

With Tom by his side, he spoke with each of the men in turn, trying to read in their eyes what they'd meant by making Spencer jump the cutlass. And all the time, in the back of his mind, Brendon thought of the cruel and unnecessary punishment he'd exacted on Spencer himself, being ripped from his home and imprisoned on a ship traveling miles away from his home. He wondered if he shouldn't throw his lot in with the imprisoned crew members and just be done with it; hold his hands out and await punishment like he deserved. 

~*~

(four. Spencer)

Spencer was in Jon's cabin, playing rummy with Jon when Brendon barged in without knocking. 

"Need you on deck," Brendon started, hastily buckling up his belt, the one with the pockets for his telescope and his compass and whatever else pirate captains carried with them. "I think we're there -"

Spencer rolled his eyes.

Brendon stopped as soon as he seemed to realize that Spencer was in the cabin with Jon, Brendon standing stock still and swallowing hard. "Oh," he said. "Sorry. I didn't realize - I saw Tom on deck so I thought -"

Spencer raised an eyebrow and tapped his hand of cards against the table. 

Jon nodded, standing up. "It's okay, Brendon." He put his cards down on the table. "Sorry, Spence. We'll finish up later, okay?"

Spencer rolled his eyes. "Whenever," he said. "Not like I've got much to do."

"Spencer," Jon said, warningly. 

Jon had said this a few times now, but Spencer didn't think much to what Jon had been saying. There was no reason for Spencer to think any better of Brendon, just because he'd freed him from the brig and given him free run of the ship and a cabin and clothes and whatever. Spencer wouldn't need any of that stuff if Brendon hadn't stolen Spencer from his home in the first place. Brendon declaring him a free man meant _nothing_ , not when he was still stuck on this godforsaken ship in the middle of the fucking ocean.

He missed being home, he missed Ryan and his parents and clean clothes and well-cooked food. He was a fucking _prisoner_ —whatever Jon maintained Brendon had said - and he was sick of wearing somebody else's clothes—even though when he'd opened the trunk in the cabin Jon had taken him to, _his_ cabin, where he stayed by himself with no locks or chains on the door, - he might just have let out a huge sigh of relief. The trunk was full of shirts—a little big for him, hanging loosely over his breeches, but shirts. _Fresh shirts_. He'd belted them tighter with a belt he'd found in the bottom of the trunk. He'd needed to make an extra couple of holes in the belt so that it would fit him, but Jon had taken him to see Brent, the gunner, and Brent had tools so that Spencer's belt fit him perfectly now. The breeches were a few years out of fashion, but Spencer kind of liked them. They were soft, well-worn cotton, loose around his thighs and tightening around the calf. He'd had to put them to one side for a few days while the worst of his cuts healed—and that was just yet another reason not to think well of Brendon, really. 

He was wearing the breeches now though, soft cotton that laced up over his stomach, the laces hidden under the billows of his shirt. He'd been wearing his best boots the night of Ryan's father's ball (the night he'd been taken _by force_ , the night that Brendon had ruined his life) and they'd begun to soften, to become well-worn. He'd begged Jon for polish, touching at his boots sadly, unwilling to see them ruined along with anything else. 

Jon had looked at him meditatively. "I'll see if Brendon's got any," he'd said, and Spencer had bristled. 

Spencer couldn't quite forget the idea of clean boots, however, so he carefully didn't ask Jon where he'd gotten the polish from when he returned with a cloth and a tin. He'd cleaned and cleaned until he could almost see his face in them. It had been hard work—maybe harder work than Spencer had been used to, which said a lot, really, but it had been satisfying, too. 

"Where are we?" Spencer asked, eyeing Brendon and Jon. 

Brendon cleared his throat. "We're passing by an island," he said. 

Spencer raised an eyebrow. "Well, that sounds amazing." 

"Spencer -" Jon said. 

"No, really," Spencer told them. "Fascinating. Go on."

Brendon swallowed. "We're leaving the crew members who, um, the ones who hurt you. We're leaving them here." 

Jon eyed Spencer carefully, but Spencer just blinked. "I'm coming on deck with you," he said. He wasn't sure he quite understood. 

"Right," Brendon nodded. "Come on." 

~*~

Up on deck, Spencer stood with Jon up above the main deck. Brendon was standing in the center of the deck, hands behind his back, shoulders squared. There was nobody else on the deck with him. 

"What does he think he looks like?" Spencer said in an undertone to Jon. 

"Shut up," Jon said, sharply. 

Spencer swallowed, coloring. He didn't apologize. 

From the doorway at the other end of the deck, the rest of the crew began to emerge, lining up at the side of the deck furthest from the island. Behind them, Tom came out, leading the three men who had tied Spencer up and made him jump over their blades. Spencer shivered involuntarily. The cuts had mostly healed, but his legs were cris-crossed with pale pink and white slithered scars. Brendon had told him that if they could get into port quick enough and find a healer that could get them calendula cream, then the scars might not last, but Spencer didn't particularly believe him. 

"You okay?" Jon asked. He touched at Spencer's elbow. "They're tied up, they can't get to you."

"I'm fine," Spencer said, standing up straighter. His skin prickled and he couldn't help but remember. His hands shook. "They're not drunk now, and I'm not tied up." He spoke loudly, his words catching on the breeze. He eyed the men with dislike. "I'm not scared of them."

Jon nodded. "That's good," he said, carefully. "But still. They're tied up. And Brendon's between them and you. You're safe." 

Spencer hated that his safety relied on _Brendon_. 

He watched as each of the men in turn had a length of rope attached to their wrist at one end and a small trunk at the other. They were in breeches and shirts, no belts, no boots. 

"What's going to happen?" Spencer asked in an undertone, leaning over to Jon. 

"They're going to swim for shore," Jon told him, without taking his eyes off the men. "Tradition says they should be left with one shot and enough rum to work up the courage, but Brendon's replaced the rum with food."

Spencer's gaze flicked to the island. "And the island's uninhabited?" he asked. 

Jon nodded. 

"So we're-" he swallowed. "We're leaving them to starve to death or shoot themselves?"

Jon shrugged. "Technically, but-"

"Tell me why Brendon decided making them walk the plank was inhumane again?" Spencer was shaking. 

Jon looked at him for a long time. "Spence, you've got it wrong," he said. "Brendon's the voice of reason around here. He knew I'd never be able to forgive myself if we killed them."

"Yeah, right," Spencer shook his head. "Because leaving them to fend for themselves on an island like that isn't the same as just leaving them to die."

"These are busy waters, Spence. A ship will pass by here before long. They won't be there long enough to starve, and it won't hurt them to go hungry for a few weeks. They'll get picked up soon enough."

"So, hardly a punishment at all then." Spencer folded his arms and tried not to notice Jon's long sigh. 

When the three men went overboard, Spencer couldn't watch. He stared out to sea, fingertips gripping the rail. Jon rubbed his back, slow circles in between his shoulder blades. 

"Why can't we just _go_ ," Spencer said, desperately, a few minutes later. 

Jon's thumb rubbed at his shoulder. "Brendon's watching them to shore," he said. "He's a good man, Spence."

Spencer shrugged off Jon's touch. "Yeah, because there's such a wealth of evidence to back _that_ up." 

Spencer pretended that he didn't hear Jon's frustrated and beleaguered sigh. 

~*~

(five. Jon.)

The wind had been building up for the past few days; on deck, the crew rushed around roping sails and flinching as the masts creaked. 

Jon eyed the mainmast with distrust. Part of the reason that Brendon had been forced to stop in Port Haven in the first place was because the main mast was in danger of splintering; up above the Crow's Nest the deterioration was plain to see. It needed reinforcing and it needed doing sooner rather than later. 

"We need to fix the mast," Jon said, leaning in so that Brendon could hear him. His cheeks were stinging from the wind-chill; he shivered and pressed closer to Brendon.

Brendon nodded. He was at the wheel, heavily protected against the weather in oilskins and with his hat tied on. His face was red with cold. "I know," he said, raising his voice against the wind. "But we haven't got time to stop before we meet Patrick and Pete and Ashlee," he shrugged, but Jon could see the worry in his eyes. "We've just got to cross everything and pray that it holds."

"Yeah," Jon said. He knew that part of the reason they were in such a hurry to make the rendezvous was because he hadn't bothered to check the calculations Brendon had had to make by himself after Spencer had been brought on board. Jon knew that whatever his personal feelings at the time, he'd failed Brendon by not acting professionally; if anything happened to the mast then he couldn't help but blame himself. 

He waited while Brendon handed over control of the wheel to Tom, nodding awkwardly as he followed Brendon below deck and into his cabin.

"You should invite Spencer to eat with us," Brendon said, after he'd peeled off his oilskins and wrapped himself in a blanket. Outside, the wind was showing signs of dropping and Jon fervently hoped it continued like that. "Join us at the Captain's Table, and all."

Jon rolled his eyes. He was fast tiring of being in the middle of Spencer and Brendon's stilted conversations; neither seemed capable of addressing more than a halting, polite comment to the other. Spencer griped at Jon on one side, Brendon tried to make up for his mistake in kidnapping Spencer on the other. "You could try asking him yourself," Jon pointed out carefully. "Rather than leaving me in the middle all the time."

For a moment Brendon looked terribly, desperately sad. Then he righted himself, plastering on a smile that Jon had been able to recognize from before Brendon was seven—his _I'm okay_ smile. "It would sound better coming from you," Brendon told him. 

"It wouldn't," Jon sighed. "It would sound better coming from the _Captain_. You're not doing yourself any favors, you know. You need to prove yourself better than he thinks you, not worse." 

"Too late for that," Brendon said, sadly. "You should invite him, Jon. He might say yes if it comes from you."

Jon rolled his eyes. "I'm right about this, you know." 

Brendon shrugged, wrapping the blanket tighter around him. "Yeah. I don't see Spencer forgiving me any time soon."

"Urgh," Jon clenched his fists. "You could at least _try_ , Brendon. I know you're not a total dick, but you don't make it very easy for me to argue your corner." 

"Sorry," Brendon said, and flopped backwards onto the bed, covering his face with the blanket. "How did I manage to screw everything up so badly, huh? I don't think there's any way to come back from pirate kidnapper, though. You should ask him to join us. He might say yes if it comes from you."

"I give up," Jon said, shaking his head. "I'm going to go and check the navigation maps for the drop-off."

"You do that," Brendon said, but his voice was muffled under the blanket. 

~*~

"How would you like to come and eat dinner with us every night?" Jon asked, sticking his head around Spencer's cabin door. 

Spencer was playing patience, laying row after row of cards on the table in front of him. Every time the ship rolled, the cards slid into one another and off the table, but Spencer didn't look like he particularly seemed to mind. "Where?" Spencer asked, sullenly. "Have you got a restaurant in mind?"

Jon stopped himself from rolling his eyes. "Brendon wants to know if you'll join us at the Captain's table."

"Sure he does," Spencer said, giving up and starting to shuffle again. "Because of course he'd be sending you to ask. Give it up, Jon, admit that you badgered him into it."

"The two of you are driving me _insane_ ," Jon ground out. "Brendon thinks you hate him, okay? So he's sending me to ask, because clearly we're all children who can't behave like fucking _adults_."

"I do hate him," Spencer said, but Jon thought that maybe Spencer was pouting too much for that to be entirely true. He didn't blame Spencer though; he had more than good enough grounds to never want to be in the same room as Brendon. 

Jon blinked. "Excellent, great. That's great," he said. "So now I've got to go back and tell him you refuse his invitation. Jeez," he went on, throwing his arms in the air, "being piggy in the middle is just about my favorite thing about being stuck in the middle of this storm with a disintegrating mainmast and a pretty good chance we've missed the rendezvous for a pick-up that would have kept us in _food_ for the next couple of months."

"Um," Spencer said, staring at him with wide eyes. "Okay, I'll come to dinner." 

"Fine," Jon said, "And maybe you could try and be polite to him, for my sake at least." 

Spencer rolled his eyes. "I'll try, okay? It doesn't mean I've stopped thinking he's a dick."

"Good enough," Jon said, tightly, and muttered something under his breath about having _real_ work to do. 

~*~

Jon had gone over and over the navigational charts but he was pretty sure something had to be wrong. He read through the pages of Mikey's careful notes from last time they'd seen each other, Mikey shoving the sheaf of papers in Jon's hands just as they were separating. "You'll need these," Mikey had said, "for next time we meet."

Except Mikey seemed to be directing him to the middle of fucking _nowhere_. He sighed, and started to work it out again. 

"Hey," Tom said, interrupting him and closing the door quietly behind him. It was late and the ship was quiet apart from the dulled roar of the wind and the waves. 

"Hey yourself," Jon said, dropping the sheaf of papers and pulling away from the table. "You look cold."

Tom smiled awkwardly. "Yeah," he said, starting to take off his oilskins. "I think the wind's dropped though."

Jon nodded. "That's good." He stood up, leaning in and kissing Tom's cheek. "I haven't seen much of you," he said, going over to the bureau to see if he had any port left. 

"Been busy," Tom said, shortly. "Bad weather and all." 

Jon shook his head, "I wasn't -" he shrugged his shoulders. "We've all been busy."

"Yeah." Tom dropped down onto the seat that Jon had just vacated. "What are you up to?" he asked, running his fingers down the edges of the navigational charts Jon had spread all across his desk. 

Jon brought him over a drink. "Trying to figure out where the hell we're supposed to be meeting MCR. Mikey's given me the world's shittiest instructions. At this rate we're going to end up swimming a lot."

"Middle of the sea, right?" Tom said, taking a gulp. 

"You got it," Jon said, sitting down opposite Tom. Time was, they would have been half undressed and already on the bed, but things had kind of been a bit weird recently. 

"Can I?" Tom asked, pointing at Jon's bottle of rum. 

Jon nodded, and nudged his mug across the desk. "Pour some for me, too?" he asked. 

Tom sighed, and poured them both a finger. 

"Are you going to stay here tonight?" Jon asked, after a while. 

Tom shrugged. "I should probably be down with the crew," he said. "Things have been, I don't know. Unsettled, I guess."

Jon knew. He also knew that Tom wouldn't be staying with him anymore, not after all this had blown over and the crew wasn't as tense and wound up. He waited a minute, until Tom had drunk the rest of his rum. 

"It was good, what we had," he said, quietly. 

"Yeah," Tom agreed, but neither of them suggested starting back up again. "It was."

When Tom left, he touched his fingertips to Jon's shoulder, just for a moment, and Jon reached up to cover Tom's hand with his own. They didn't say anything.

~*~

(Notes)

Spencer starts to eat dinner with Brendon and Jon, and its awkward and Brendon's ashamed but occasionally Brendon forgets himself and slips into his old relationship with Jon. Spencer is confused by Brendon. 

~*~

Spencer begins to enjoy life on ship. It's lighthearted; the crew is in a better mood and there's no sign of any of the piracy that Spencer's been brought up to abhor. He's confused. 

They do a rum run, it's not that furtive, it's swapping kegs in a pretty natural harbor on a little island, then moving them up the coast and swapping them again. 

Spencer starts to help with the cooking on deck, everyone seems pleased that Brendon's no longer helping. Spencer doesn't really get the joke or understand why Brendon puts up with such insubordination. Brendon thanks him for helping cook and admits he's a terrible cook. Spencer's rude to Brendon and Brendon doesn't say anything. Jon's watching and Spencer sort of feels ashamed. 

~*~

They lay anchor at a tiny island in a harbor that's virtually hidden. All week the crew's been excited and Spencer hasn't wanted to ask why, but when he finally does, he's just told that they're meeting MCR, which doesn't make any sense to him. 

Turns out it's three days of campfires and ghost stories and feasts. Brendon's like a totally different person and it's obvious that he loves MCR and they love him and Jon, and it's weird for Spencer to see. Brendon has been nothing but awkward and stilted around him. 

Spencer is rude and antagonistic towards Brendon in public and Brendon never says anything back. Sometimes Spencer feels bad because he doesn't like the way the others look at him after he's rude. 

Brendon keeps catching Spencer watching him and vice versa and when they're lining up for food (Ray is a much better cook; Spencer is loving his food) there's a moment where their hands touch and they exchange a confused gaze, their cheeks pinking. 

Spencer can't differentiate between Pirate!Brendon and Brendon. 

~*~

ASIDE. MCR, Jon, Tom and Brendon meet to discuss their plan to find Treasure Island, a myth-like story of treasure being hidden in an underground cave, the entrance to which is from another cave, and supposedly guarded even now. They go over maps (maybe a group of islands, uncharted, mapping them together, seeing if it fits the clues they've got, some fluke of nature means they can only be visited twice a year WHO KNOWS, ROCKS OR SOMETHING AND TIDES AND STUFF.) MCR mapped one in the fall and didn't come up with anything, now it's Brendon's turn and Mikey hands over copies of the maps they made. They're decorated round the edges with little black stick figures and flags, which Brendon figures is Gerard's contribution to the mapping process. Jon's going to be working a lot with Mikey to work out a route. 

~*~

Final night on the island. Spencer's rude to Brendon and even Jon's face flares up in anger. Brendon just goes silent and everyone makes an effort to make him feel better. Spencer feels a mixture of awful and angry, because it's just like everyone forgot that Brendon kidnapped him and took him from Ryan and everyone he knew, but mostly Ryan, who was his best friend. Spencer's angry that everyone ignores the fact he's being held against his will—except he kind of isn't, apart from being trapped on the ship, because he has a cabin of his own and he's on land now, and he could wander off and he doesn't think anyone would stop him. He should hate everyone because they're pirates, but he doesn't because they're _nice_. He doesn't understand. Plus, he keeps staring at Brendon, and catching Brendon looking at him. 

They're singing campfire songs and Jon's been looking really sad and Spencer thinks that Jon's sad because he knows Spencer's right and Brendon's wrong. This sort of gives Spencer a nice feeling of _ha_ , except that really, Jon's just realized that Brendon's kind of in love with Spencer and he can never have him, so Jon just looks sadly at Spencer and then he goes to sit by Brendon and hugs him tight and kisses his temple and doesn't look at Spencer at all. 

Spencer is genuinely shocked and then Frank comes over and takes him by the elbow and says, "come with me," kind of angrily. Spencer finds himself looking to Brendon for protection, but Brendon's engrossed in the campfire and doesn't notice. So Spencer goes off with Frank, who takes him to see Gerard. 

Spencer's extra- fierce because he's scared. Frank sits a way off and Gerard motions for Spencer to sit down. 

First of all Gerard talks to him in a round about random way about life and the legal system and the system of natural law and all the time Spencer's thinking _is this it? Are they going to kill me?_ —because Gerard and Frank remind him of pictures of pirates he's seen, and some of the sailors strung up back home. 

But then Gerard looks at him and stops his story abruptly. "You need to lay off Brendon," he says. 

Spencer says, "Why? Because you say so? And all pirate captains stick together?"

"If you like," Gerard says, "Or maybe because it isn't fair anymore and you're being deliberately cruel."

Spencer rolls his eyes. "Whatever."

Gerard looks at him for a long time and then tells Spencer a long story about dolphins Spencer can't make head nor tail of. Then Gerard motions Frank over and Frank walks Spencer back to camp. Frank says that Jon and Brendon grew up together and only have each other in the world, and that Jon had been captured because he'd run away from his position on Brendon's parents' ship with Brendon, and that Brendon acted irrationally but he was probably terrified and the crew would probably only put up with so much before they acted on behalf of their captain and Spencer found himself in trouble. Spencer still doesn't feel like anyone is taking the fact that Brendon kidnapped him seriously enough. 

"Are you threatening me?" Spencer asks. 

Frank shakes his head. "Really, really no. I'm warning you."

Back at the campfire and Brendon's singing and both he and Jon are playing guitar. Spencer's never heard Brendon sing by himself before and he's rooted to the spot. He's amazing. 

Frank looks at him and says, "Oh. It's like that, is it?"

"Like what?" Spencer asks, but Frank's already walking away, jumping onto Bob's back. 

~*~

They're packing up; Brendon and Gerard disappear off together to finalize plans to meet again in six months, and discuss the plans to find the treasure on the island.  
Finally Gerard says, "what are you going to do?"

Brendon shrugs, drawing in the sand with the end of his stick. He's barefoot, digging into the sand with his toes. "I love him, I think," he says. 

Gerard watches him sadly. "You can't keep him."

"I know," Brendon says, and he does. 

~*~

On board ship, late night meetings with Jon and Brendon and Spencer kind of ends up hanging around after food—sometimes Tom comes too but for the most part it's Jon and Brendon and Spencer, talking about treasure maps and Spencer starts to forget himself around Brendon and it turns into something fun. 

Jon and Tom have kind of cooled things off but they're still friends; Jon finds himself watching Spencer and Brendon and the careful way they are with each other, the stolen glances and the way they sidestep each other so they don't end up in each other's space. They lean in too far when they're poring over the map. Spencer always offers to stay behind once they've done for the night and help clear up. 

The atmosphere becomes tight and awkward, their awareness of their own space and that around them is too tight. They end up parting for the night and Spencer goes to his cabin and Brendon goes to bed and they both jerk off because they can't not. (Somehow make it so that they're at a point where they sort of understand each other and have forgiven each other, in order to get to the next part).

~*~

"I can't believe it's _tomorrow_ ," Brendon said, excitedly. He was kneeling on his chair, leaning over the table, gaze flicking between the papers and the maps and the log books and the bottle of port and the glasses. 

"You are the world's worst pirate captain," Jon told him, with a roll of his eyes. 

Spencer grinned. Time was, that kind of comment would have had them all freezing and Spencer eyeing Brendon tightly, but as it was, the comment slid by unheeded. 

"Suck it up," Brendon said, beaming, leaning over and nudging Jon with his shoulder. "Don't even try and pretend you're not excited, Jon Walker, I won't believe you for a moment."

"I wouldn't even _try_ ," Jon laughed. He swilled the last drops of port in the bottom of his glass, tipping it back and swallowing. "Treasure hunting, adventuring and pirating, Brendon. All we ever dreamed of."

"And _more_ ," Brendon grinned, shooting a sidelong glance at Spencer and winking. 

Spencer blushed. "So, uh, you used to talk about this stuff, when you were growing up?" He touched at the edge of the maps, the thick paper rough beneath his fingers. 

Jon rolled his eyes. "Every night, Spence. Every night."

Brendon laughed. "Don't tell it like you weren't as big a part of it as I was." He poked Jon in the side, turning to Spencer. "Back when we were young," he said, twisting his fingers in Jon's shirt so that Jon wriggled away with a squeak of protest, "we used to sneak on to the deck after everyone had gone to bed, just me and Jon-"

"-and that ratty old blanket," Jon filled in, pushing his chair away from the table, further away from Brendon's fingers. "Don't forget that blanket."

"Yeah," Brendon nodded, leaning further over the table and grinning at Spencer. "We used to sneak on deck and we'd wrap ourselves up in this moth-eaten old blanket, and Jon would tell me about the stars and we'd talk about how we'd be adventurers when we grew up." 

"Ryan and I used to do that," Spencer said, with a smile. He remembered spending afternoons in the grounds of the Governor's house, hiding from Ryan's tutor as Ryan told him about how he was going to be a famous writer when he grew up. Spencer had never known what it was he wanted to do, only that he wanted to do it with Ryan by his side. 

Spencer cleared his throat. He hoped Ryan was okay. "Except we didn't have some ratty old blanket-"

"Whatever happened to that old thing?" Jon asked, quickly, and Spencer shot a quick look at Brendon, who'd ducked his head and was running his finger down the edge of his log book. 

"I don't know," Brendon said. "I don't think we had it on _the Black Parade_."

Jon shrugged. "We must have left it with Pete and Ashlee. Hope they're showing it the right degree of love and respect."

"It's probably fallen apart by now," Brendon told him, shutting the log book firmly. 

"Yeah." Jon sighed. "Look, guys, we've got a long day tomorrow. I think I'm going to hit the sack." 

Brendon nodded, not looking at Spencer. "Good idea." 

Jon smiled, standing up and stretching. He rolled his shoulders and then leaned over to ruffle Brendon's hair, pressing his lips to Brendon's temple. 

Brendon's eyes fluttered shut, and he leaned into the touch, reaching over and touching at Jon's side. "Sleep well, Jon," he said softly. 

"You too," Jon's voice was muffled by Brendon's hair. Standing up, he ruffled Spencer's hair on the way out of the cabin. "In the morning we will be _treasure hunters_ ," he said. 

Brendon pumped his fist in the air. "Treasure Hunters _extraordinaire_ ," he said. 

Jon laughed and tipped a lazy salute at Brendon as he shut the door. "You said it." 

Spencer swallowed uneasily, not letting his eyes meet Brendon's. He'd known—of course he'd known—that Brendon and Jon were close, and that Spencer's imprisonment had caused some friction in their relationship, but before tonight he didn't think he'd realized just how affectionate they'd been. Spencer was kind of embarrassed; Ryan was his best friend and everyone had said they'd grown up as close as brothers, but Spencer had grown up with the rigid rules of society so deeply ingrained in him that the nearest they'd come to hugging even, had been to bump elbows and lean into each other. They'd never allowed themselves the easy, affectionate camaraderie that Jon and Brendon clearly shared. 

Spencer hoped that Ryan was okay. He missed him; he wanted to talk to him, tell him all about Brendon, about Jon and the ship and how he kind of liked being some kind of sailor. He wanted to tell him all about Brendon being a good captain, about the _Northern Downpour_ and _The Black Parade_ and how he was pretty sure being a treasure hunter and an adventurer was what he'd always secretly wanted to do. He sort of wanted to tell him about the other stuff too, the things he didn't really know how to talk about. How Brendon's smile kind of made Spencer's stomach flip over, about how sometimes Brendon leaned in too close and Spencer wanted him to lean in _closer_. 

"We'd better get this stuff tidied away," Brendon said, interrupting Spencer's reverie. 

"Right," Spencer said, awkwardly, standing up and starting to roll up the maps and the navigational charts. 

They were both moving quickly, trying to be quiet but the air hummed with some kind of closeness; Spencer's breath caught in his throat as his fingers brushed Brendon's. 

Brendon's eyes met his, just for the briefest of moments, before he turned away, busying himself with putting papers away in his bureau. 

Spencer cleared his throat and tidied away their glasses and the empty bottle of port.

Then, the table was clear and they were left staring at each other, Spencer tapping his fingers against his thigh, Brendon biting his lip. 

"Um," Brendon said, eloquently. 

Spencer nodded. _I can't not do this_ , he thought, and he cleared the space between them and leaned in to kiss Brendon's cheek. Jon had kissed Brendon goodnight, hadn't he? How was this any different?

Except Brendon moved and Spencer missed Brendon's cheek, catching the corner of his mouth instead. 

Spencer didn't pull away; he _couldn't_. He just stayed perfectly still, his mouth touching Brendon's. Brendon opened his mouth, just a little, and still Spencer didn't move. He couldn't breathe.

His skin burnt. 

Brendon reached up to touch Spencer's cheek, just once, his fingertips brushing the skin so that Spencer trembled. But then they were both pulling away, Brendon leaning over the bureau and Spencer blushing red. 

"It's been a long night," Brendon said, and Spencer could hear the shake in his voice. 

"Yeah," Spencer said, equally awkwardly. "I should go to bed. We've both got a long day tomorrow."

Brendon nodded quickly, and Spencer hurried out of the door, touching his hand to his mouth as soon as he had the door shut behind him. 

~*~

(dragon island)

The whole crew was up before four bells the following morning. Brendon had barely slept; once Spencer had gone to bed, Brendon had been left red-faced and desperate, hard and wanting nothing more than to wrap his arms around Spencer's neck and kiss him over and over. 

He'd told himself he wanted to sleep, peeling off his boots and his breeches and falling face first under the covers in just his shirt. He'd tried to stop himself but he hadn't been able to; his hand had slipped beneath his shirt and down his shorts. He'd jerked himself off quickly to the thought of Spencer's pink face and the memory of his mouth on Brendon's; the hitch of his breath and the way his breeches clung to his thighs. 

It wasn't long before Brendon was spilling all over his hand and the sheets. Red faced and breathing hard, he'd pulled the blankets up and tried to sleep. 

He hadn't been able to though; his mind was racing with thoughts of Spencer and the island and the search for treasure blurring across the shadow of his eyelids. It didn't much matter what was keeping him awake— _not Spencer_ , he thought, desperately—because regardless, he was awake and soon enough he'd have to be up anyway, so. 

He ended up on deck, dressed and ready to go, standing at the prow of the ship as the first vestiges of the sunrise slipped over the horizon, hazy shadows of light rippling across the water. Jon joined him after a while, hooking his chin over Brendon's shoulder. 

"You startled me," Brendon said, with a grin. 

Jon laughed, wrapping an arm around Brendon's shoulders. "Thinking of anyone in particular?"

Brendon rolled his eyes. "Shut up," he said. He was excited for today and nothing was going to ruin it, nothing. "Just shut up and watch the sunrise with me, okay?" 

Jon grinned, hugging Brendon closer. "Adventurers, Brendon."

~*~

Spencer joined them after a while, coming up on deck and doing up the buttons on his ill-fitting great coat to ward against the early morning chill. 

"Spencer," Jon grinned. "Come and watch the rest of the sunrise with us." 

Brendon elbowed him gently. 

Jon winked. 

Spencer awkwardly stood to the other side of Jon, and didn't meet Brendon's gaze. 

~*~

Treasure Island. They're looking for certain criteria that fit the directions on the treasure map. They're hopeful, because they sailed around her before laying anchor and they spotted something that looked like a stone archway hiding behind the trees on the northernmost tip of the island, and there are goats in among the trees on the east coast, but Mikey and Bob had said there had been goats on the island they scouted out, too. They're hopeful though, and split into two groups—one to go north and check out the arch, one to go east to check out the goats. It's probably at least half a day's walk for both teams and they agree to reconvene the following evening after having mapped their appropriate bits. Brendon and Spencer go in separate groups, Spencer and Jon to the north, Brendon and Tom to the east. 

Spencer and Jon's team doesn't come back and Brendon's getting frantic; he wants to send a search party after them but he realizes there's no moon and resolves to do it at first light. They go north and meet the others coming south—Jon had hurt himself (Spencer's looking pretty pale) and it had slowed them down. Brendon's not exactly a surgeon, but he's got a fairly basic understanding and he takes a look at Jon's ankle. It's swollen and bruised but he doesn't think it's broken. Neither does Jon; he's just annoyed he's caused everyone so much bother. 

They take things extra slow and make camp for an extra night at the foot of the cliff, sending some of the party back to the ship to put their minds at rest. 

They're woken up in the middle of the night by a noise like screaming; Brendon—who Spencer is beginning to realize is stupidly brave—goes off with a lantern to investigate and Spencer goes with him. 

It's almost day break, and the sun is rising in the east as they climb up the cliff. 

They find an injured dragon half way up the hill. She seems old, and it looks like she'd fallen from the cliff top. She's moaning in pain, and they try and help her, but they can't help much and Brendon ends up singing to her when he realizes they can't do anything. He strokes her head (she's red and burgundy, and her scales are dulling even as they sit with her). 

So when Spencer first wanders into the cave, it's because he doesn't think he can bear to see the dragon dying on the rocks outside. Brendon is sitting on the ground cradling the dying dragon's head in his hands, and he's singing to her, stroking her neck. The dragon has stopped crying, at least. She's calmer, although her breathing is laboured, and Spencer just can't bear to stand and watch. His breath is all caught in his throat, and his eyes are stinging and all he can see is Brendon, Brendon making a dying creature's last moments better. He thinks that this really isn't the time for epiphanies, but he knows he was wrong about Brendon. Brendon's, _everything_. 

He doesn't know if the cave is the dragon's home or not, but there's a trail of gray-silver dragon blood leading down over the rocks to the flat precipice outside the cave, and he thinks the dragon must have dragged herself here after she hurt herself. 

The cave curves backwards, becoming lighter rather than darker, and he follows the light without knowing why. The cave opens up into a cavern, lit by a skylight up in the roof of the cave, a hole into the cliff top. 

He thinks, _just like the treasure legend_. 

But then he's startled by a sound, a wheeze, a soft whuffle. 

Spencer turns around and crouched in the corner of the cave is a tiny, round dragon, watching Spencer with large, scared eyes and curving itself around a large egg. 

Spencer drops to his knees before he's even had time to think about it. He had dogs as a child and they'd rescued a puppy once—a terrified, skittish black and white mongrel. He would only ever still if he was approached on his own level. 

The dragon backs further up against the wall; the only sound in the cave is the dragon's increasingly laboured breathing. 

"Hey," Spencer says, crawling slowly towards him. He's not scared, and he thinks that maybe he should be. _Dragons_. "Hey, baby dragon, hey there. I'm not going to hurt you," he says, softly, and he could be imagining it but he thinks the dragon calms a little. "I'm not going to hurt you," Spencer says again, and he's close enough to touch now, close enough to hear the soft wheeze of the dragon's breath. He doesn't look at the egg, doesn't take his eyes off the dragon's face. Close up, the dragon is a pink-lavender colour, the colour shifting as he breathed. "Hey baby dragon," he says, softly. 

The dragon lifts his snout, ever so slightly. Spencer tries to smile. "I'm not going to hurt you," he says for the third time, and he holds his hand out, careful not to move too quickly or too sharply. 

The dragon doesn't move away, and Spencer reaches out to touch at his scales. His fingertips brush his neck, and Spencer's surprised that he's not cold, not cold at all. The dragon's skin thrums with warmth and he stays perfectly still as Spencer strokes his neck. His eyes are wide and warm but maybe not so scared as they were. 

Spencer moves closer, all the time talking under his breath, a reassuring sound in the quiet of the cave. He scratches between the dragon's ears, and is surprised at the whuffle the dragon makes, pressing up into Spencer's touch. 

"Hey, you like that?" Spencer asks, with a smile, and he scratches again. 

The dragon makes the same whuffly noise and Spencer can't help it, he smiles wide.

~*~

When Brendon says, "Spencer?" a while later, Spencer is sitting against the wall, the baby dragon pressed up against his chest with his snout up in the curve of Spencer's neck. 

"Shhh," Spencer says, softly. 

"It's a _baby_ ," Brendon says, in amazement. 

"A baby and an _egg_ ," Spencer tells him, and nods towards the egg that the baby dragon is still curved around.

"Oh my _god_ ," Brendon manages. "Look at them."

"Come here," Spencer says. "Come here and say hey."

Brendon crouches next to them both, reaching out a cautious hand to the baby dragon's back. 

"He likes that," Spencer tells him. "Go on."

Brendon places a hesitant hand on the dragon's back. The dragon wheezes softly against Spencer's neck and Brendon breaks into a smile. His face is tear-stained and tired, and Spencer reaches out a hand to touch at Brendon's arm. 

"Sit down," Spencer says, and he pulls Brendon down next to him, trying not to notice the feel of Brendon's skin beneath his fingertips. "Is she-" he asks, hesitantly thinking about the dying dragon outside the entrance to the cave. 

Brendon nods. "A few minutes ago."

Spencer swallows down a sad breath. "Oh," he says. He wants to reach for Brendon's hand, but doesn't know how to. 

"Yeah," Brendon says, and he keeps on stroking the baby dragon's back. The dragon has tiny, tiny pink-lavender wings. They sort of— _flutter_ in time with his breathing.

"I'm really glad we found her in time," Spencer finds himself saying. "She didn't die alone. She had you."

Brendon looks down at his lap. "I couldn't save her, though."

"She wasn't scared though," Spencer tells him. "Because of _you_." He wants to kiss Brendon, kiss him and tell him how he's one of the most amazing men Spencer's ever met.

Brendon just reaches for Spencer's hand and holds on tight. Spencer can hear him trying to get his breathing under control. 

"Do you think these were her babies?" Spencer asks softly, after a minute. The dragon is curled up on his lap, breath warm against Spencer's neck. He seems like he's dozing, his tail curled around the egg.

"Maybe," Brendon says. He's staring down at their joined hands.

"We can't leave them here," Spencer tells him. "I _won't_."

"They'll come with us," Brendon says. He leans his head against Spencer's shoulder. "We won't leave them here."

~*~

Spencer isn't sure how long they sit there, with Brendon's head resting on one shoulder and the dragon's on the other. 

He sees the shadows shift in the light from the skylight. 

"We should be getting back," Brendon says after a while. Spencer wonders if he slept. "Jon will be getting worried."

"Yeah," Spencer agrees. "But-" They're still holding hands; Spencer lifts up their hands and points across the cave to a shadowy corner. "Do you see what I see?"

In the corner is a hole going down to a cave below. There looks to be the rusty remains of an iron staircase leading down, just like in the legend of the treasure island they're searching for. 

" _Fuck_ ," Brendon breathes, sitting up straight. 

"I know," Spencer says, meeting Brendon's gaze. They're staring at each other, eyes bright and wide. Spencer wants nothing more than to lean in and press his mouth to Brendon's. Spencer's mouth is suddenly dry. 

Brendon bites his lip. "We've found it, Spence," he says, in wonder. "We've fucking _found_ it." 

On his lap, the dragon stirs. He opens his eyes slowly, shifting position awkwardly. There's a foot in Spencer's crotch that Spencer kind of wishes wasn't there. He moves, and Spencer breathes a sigh of relief. 

The dragon leans in and licks at Spencer's face, his tongue rough. 

"Oh my _god_ ," Brendon says again, in awe. 

"I think we should name him Henry," Spencer says, and his cheeks are pink. 

"Henry," Brendon says, and he touches at Henry's face, running his hand over his snout and in between his ears. "I like it."

Henry nudges at Brendon's hand, and Spencer smiles. 

~*~

Spencer and Brendon decide to take Henry and the egg back to the ship, but they're worried about the body of the dragon laying outside. They don't want the baby to be upset. They talk about carrying Henry and hoping he doesn't see, but in the end they both take their shirts off so they can carry the egg (Brendon carries it) and they walk outside very slowly with Henry. 

He's okay, actually, he's sad and he's quiet.

He nudges her and licks at her face and Spencer goes over. Before he can get there though, Henry is turning around and walking back towards Spencer with big, wet eyes. They sit on the cliff around the corner for a minute and Brendon assures Henry that he's being ever so careful with the egg, and once Henry is reassured he stands up and waits for Brendon and Spencer to follow. Spencer has to carry Henry over some of the more difficult bits, because he's only got tiny little wobbly legs and sometimes the ledges are too high for him. 

When they get back to their makeshift camp, Jon is frustratedly hopping around on a crutch and leaning on Zack, and he's really mad at Brendon, saying _why didn't you come back, we were so worried,_ that he doesn't notice Henry or pay particular attention to what it is Brendon's carrying so carefully in his and Spencer's shirt. Zack has to put his hand on Jon's shoulder to shut him up. 

And then Spencer walks forward with Henry by his side, wobbling from side to side and wheezing. 

Jon says, "...Oh my god."

"This is Henry," Spencer says, shyly. 

"He's _pink_ ," Jon says, stupidly. 

Brendon and Spencer and Henry all stare at him. 

"Not that it matters, of course," Jon says quickly, shooting a sidelong glance at Zack, who is staring at Henry with wide eyes. "Also, he's a dragon." 

"Which don't exist," Zack puts in, helpfully. 

Spencer narrows his eyes. His bitch face kind of scares Zack, which makes Brendon giggle. It usually makes Jon laugh too, but Jon's too busy staring at Henry and the egg in Brendon's arms. 

"That's an egg," Jon says. 

"I think we're going to call her Daisy," Brendon says, with shining eyes. 

Spencer turns to him. "Really?" 

"Yeah," Brendon says, cradling the egg very carefully and kneeling down so that Henry can nudge gently at his baby sister, all cocooned in the egg. "What do you think, Henry? Do you think she's a Daisy?"

Henry juts his snout in the air and Brendon can't help but think he looks thoughtful. Spencer crouches down beside them and scratches in between Henry's ear so he whuffles gently. He licks Brendon's cheek, then Spencer's. 

Jon looks amazed. Zack looks carefully bemused. 

"I think we should get Henry and Daisy-egg back to the ship now, guys," Brendon says, standing up. 

"Right," Jon says. 

"Sure," Zack agrees. Clearly the world has gone stark raving mad. 

Spencer's eyes are shining and he can't stop smiling at Brendon. 

Brendon's smiling back, and Henry's nudging at Spencer's knee. He whuffles, and rests his head against Spencer's leg.

~*~

Henry walks behind Spencer, wobbling from side to side on unsteady baby legs, and he's got the tiniest, tiniest, pink-lavender wings and sometimes he gets sleepy and wheezy and then Spencer carries him until Spencer gets all sleepy and wheezy and then they all sit down for a bit until Spencer says that Henry is less sleepy and less wheezy. 

Jon says, "Yep, Henry's definitely looking better," but he's just looking at Spencer and shaking his head. 

Brendon's got stars in his eyes, for real, and Jon's never seen him be so careful, except for when they found the kittens, Dylan and Clover, and Jon said that the Northern Downpour needed cats and Brendon agreed wholeheartedly, and then wrapped Dylan and Clover in his second best flouncy shirt and never said a word when Jon let them sleep in his cabin. 

Brendon is the most affected—he'd spent his childhood dreaming of dragons and he's worried he's done the wrong thing. Turns out (of course!) that one of the sailors has worked with dragons before ("What?" Brendon exclaims, "You knew that dragons really existed and you never told me?") and Henry sleeps in Spencer's bed, wrapped in blankets, curled around the egg. 

He'll sleep for at least a day, Archie (specialist dragon knowledge sailor!Archie) tells Brendon—you should too. 

~*~

Brendon is so excited and even Jon is too, only he's propped up in bed with his leg up, under direction not to leave his cabin. 

Brendon makes sure that Tom is looking after Jon and then he goes into his cabin and he just gives in to his excitement and leans over the table and laughs and laughs. 

And Spencer's laughing too, unable to stop himself and they're laughing closer and closer and Brendon just says, "Dragons, Spencer, dragons-" and Spencer leans over and kisses him and this time they don't stop. 

~*~

In the morning, Brendon wakes up to Spencer watching him, smoothing Brendon's hair behind his ear. 

Brendon leans up and kisses him, and Spencer sits up so that Brendon can tug his shirt over his head, and press his mouth to the Spencer's collarbone.

Afterwards, Spencer says, _let me help,_ when Brendon goes to put on his shirt, and then says, _will you, would you help me with mine_ (and Brendon can barely breathe). 

They have breakfast on deck and they can't stop looking at each other and smiling and it must be obvious to everyone. They spend a lot of time checking on Henry and the egg (Daisy, Brendon tells everyone). 

Jon hobbles up on some makeshift crutches and sees them and he smiles and Brendon sees him and something in his gaze falters and Jon can't understand why. Once Spencer's down with the dragons, Brendon takes Jon to one side. 

Jon's saying how pleased he is and joking about how happy Brendon looks. Brendon looks at him and his face is bleak, absolutely hollow, a mask. He says, "Set a course for port, Jon, we're going back to Port Haven."

It takes a moment. Jon just says, "No, Brendon, no."

Brendon's eyes darken. "Yes," he says. 

"I won't."

"You will," Brendon says fiercely. "I am your captain and you will do what I say," he says. Then, "Jon. You have to do this for me. This is the right thing to do."

"Are you going to tell him?" Jon asks softly, after a minute. His heart is breaking for his best friend—and for Spencer.

Brendon doesn't say anything, just leans over the edge for a minute, before turning to face Jon again. Brendon's face is wet, and Jon can't tell if it's the spray or not. 

"He isn't mine to keep," Brendon says, and Jon's heart aches. 

~*~

Jon works out that they're three weeks from port. Spencer offers up his cabin on a full time basis for Henry and Daisy, moving into Brendon's bed. 

"Where are we going now?" he asks, lying in bed with his shirt off and just his breeches on.

Brendon busies himself at the table and says, "We've just got a drop off to make."

Spencer can't figure out why Jon looks so sad. The mood of the crew is somber and Brendon is busy much of the time (moping, mainly,) and he closets himself away a lot. Spencer spends a long time with Henry. He's still a pinky-lavender color, even though Archie says that dragon scales can shift in shade over their first eighteen months. His tongue is rough and he licks at Spencer's palm. Spencer's worried about the dragon's ability to burn him but Archie says that they don't make fire until they're two years old. 

"They're defenseless as babies," Archie says, which makes Spencer fervently glad that they decided to take them back on board ship. 

Brendon's looking more than tired—exhausted, even. Whenever Spencer tries to ask him what's wrong, Brendon just kisses him fiercely. 

Sex is desperate; sometimes Brendon holds him down, sometimes Brendon straddles Spencer, pinning him to the bed, jacking himself off till he comes across his Spencer's face, gasping _mine_ and smearing his thumb down Spencer's cheek. 

Sometimes Spencer binds him to the bed frame, wrists in soft silk scarves. He spends ages just taking off Brendon's boots, his breeches, undoing his shirt so it hangs off Brendon's shoulders, kneeling over him and touching him everywhere, for hour after hour. 

Afterwards, Brendon clings to Spencer, leaving bruises. Sometimes Brendon begs Spencer to mark him, and Spencer presses fingerprints into his hips, his wrists, his shoulders. 

Spencer thinks that Brendon barely sleeps. He keeps waking up to find Brendon gone, in with the dragons or up on board. One night he'd climbed up into the crow's nest with no lantern and no moonlight. 

That last week, Spencer hears Jon and Brendon arguing, desperate and painful. 

He pretends not to have heard. 

"I love you," Spencer tells Brendon, that night. Brendon kisses him, over and over, and fucks him harder and faster until Spencer's barely holding on. Afterwards, Brendon clings to him, but when Spencer wakes up, Brendon's gone.

~*~

They lay anchor one morning before dawn; Jon comes to tell Brendon, knocking and coming into the cabin. Brendon's clinging to a sleeping Spencer. 

"We're here," Jon says softly, "It's time."

Brendon nods.

"It's not too late," Jon says. "We can just restock and get the hell out of here."

"No," Brendon says. He's white but determined. "He's not mine."

Jon doesn't say that he certainly _looks_ like he is. He nods, sadly. "I'll get the boat ready."

Once Jon's gone, Brendon shakes Spencer awake. He kisses him. 

"Morning," Spencer says, sleepily, hugging Brendon closer. 

Brendon tells Spencer that they've laid anchor and they've got to row into port for the drop off, before it was properly light. "Want to come?" he asks.

Spencer nods and they get dressed, Brendon's hands shaking so much that Spencer has to do the buttons and the laces up. Brendon drops to his knees and sucks Spencer off as Jon knocks on the door and waits outside. Spencer's hands tangle in Brendon's hair and he doesn't know it's the last time. Brendon's barely holding it together.

~*~

Jon's waiting by the boat; he looks stupidly, ridiculously sad. He puts his hand on Spencer's shoulder but doesn't say anything. Spencer's puzzled; he thinks there are too many people on deck for the time in the morning. 

There's a small chest in the row boat, roped shut. Spencer assumes it's the drop-off. 

In the boat, Brendon won't look at him, staring out to sea. Spencer is beginning to get the feeling that something's wrong; Tom won't meet his eye and the two sailors who are rowing seem to be looking the other way whenever Spencer looks at them, too. 

They get to port as the first strains of sunlight can be seen over the hills; Spencer doesn't realize they're back in Port Haven until Tom's helped put the chest on the jetty and Spencer's clambered out. 

Brendon's just standing there in the middle of the boat. 

"Brendon," Spencer says wildly, looking around. "What-"

"You were never mine to begin with," Brendon says. "I've brought you home."

They argue, right there on the jetty and Brendon orders Tom and the others not to let Spencer back on the boat. They hold Spencer back while Brendon tries to explain. "You don't love me," Brendon says, "not really. You couldn't." 

Spencer tries to tell him that he _does_. 

Brendon shrugs his shoulders and says, "But I don't love you."

And they leave Spencer on the jetty with a sea chest with his belongings and a few of Jon's drawings of Henry and Daisy-egg and a share of the money from the rum-runs and the smuggling. 

Brendon doesn't look back.

~*~

Back on board ship, Brendon doesn't meet anyone's eye. He goes back to his cabin and rubs at his eyes with the heel of his hands and sends up orders to lift the anchor and make sail for further up the coast. 

They need to buy supplies and mend a few things and the men need a break, but it can't be too close to Port Haven; they stop at Fonseca, about half a day's hard ride from Spencer. 

Jon comes into Brendon's cabin and Brendon's pale and shaking. He hides his face in Jon's shoulder and says, _I've done the right thing, right?_ Over and over until Jon nods and touches at his hair. 

Brendon doesn't sleep and spends the night on board. 

~*~

Jon goes on shore leave for 48 hours with the majority of the crew. Brendon stays on board with a skeleton crew. 

Jon goes down the coast on horseback and he's a really shitty rider and horses hate him, so he curses a lot and hopes that Brendon and Spencer get their heads out of their asses to make this really crappy trip worthwhile. 

Jon's taking a really massive risk going back into Port Haven, and an even bigger risk by going back to the Port offices and the Governor's house. He doesn't know how to find Spencer any other way though.

Jon had hidden his lock picks in his right boot. Not only were they uncomfortable to walk against, but Jon was also really shitty at picking locks, so he really hoped he never had to use the damn things. His plan wasn't up to much, he knew that, but if it fell apart then at least he might have a chance of escaping if he could pick the lock on the prison cell. He also had a tiny blade hidden in his left sock and a pistol strapped to his thigh. He'd picked his loosest breeches in the hope that it disguised the pistol. 

He really didn't want to have to use any of them. He hoped his disguise was good enough.

Jon took a deep breath, and walked into the port offices. 

~*~

INSERT CIRCUMSTANCES HERE. SOMEHOW HE ESCAPES DETECTION AND FINDS SPENCER, AND ALSO, RYAN.

He finds Spencer, and Spencer's heartbroken and raging. 

"Brendon was doing the right thing," Jon tells Spencer. 

Spencer argues - at length and quite eloquently—that Brendon wasn't. Ryan shrugs his agreement. 

"He was," Jon says again, and he tells Spencer that he should never have been on the _Northern Downpour_ , and he wouldn't have been if it wasn't for Jon having been captured. He explains that Brendon took Spencer's choices away from him and Brendon could never have been happy with Spencer knowing that to be the truth. 

Spencer frowns and says that Brendon's fucked up again then, because he's taken Spencer's choices away from him _again_. 

"I know," Jon says, "So I'm here to ask you if you'll come back. Of your own free will."

Ryan rolls his eyes. "Of course he will," he says. "So long as I can come too."

"You?" Jon says, and yes, he's eyeing up Ryan because that—of course—will be the epic beginning of a romance. 

So they pack up Spencer and Ryan's belongings, and Jon's thinking there's no way he's going to be able to carry that on the back of Ol' Nellie or whatever his horse is called. Ryan just rolls his eyes again (is that all he does? Jon thinks, and kind of hopes he'll do it again) and they steal a wagon and escape by cover of darkness or something, and it's all pretty cool and it turns out both Ryan and Spencer are better with horses than Jon so he doesn't even have to try and steer. 

"I'm better with ships," he says, under his breath, and claps himself on the back for not steering Ol' Nellie into a ditch.

~*~

MEANWHILE. ON BOARD SHIP. SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAS HAPPENED. Bad guys have taken the ship, and are holding the crew - and Brendon - hostage.

~*~

MEANWHILE. ON LAND, JON AND SPENCER AND RYAN ALL REALIZE THAT SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED ON BOARD SHIP AND RYAN ROLLS HIS EYES AND JON'S CHEEKS PINK EVEN THOUGH HE IS WORRIED FOR BRENDON AND THE DRAGONS OH MY AND THEN THEY EMBARK UPON A RESCUE MISSION. Henry raises the alarm by swimming to shore and alerting them. 

~*~

THEY RESCUE BRENDON, WHO HAS BEEN STABBED IN THE ARM AND POSSIBLY SHOT. IN A NON-DEATH CAUSING WAY. Spencer spends some quality time bandaging Brendon's wounds, and Daisy the dragon is born and she's dark green like leaves in the forest after it's rained, and she has these huge big flappy wings (Archie says she's going to be a flyer, she is, and Spencer beams, like a proud parent) and her wings wrap around Henry and they're amazing and then Brendon hides in his cabin so that he doesn't have to see Spencer leave.

Brendon isn't pining. He really isn't. He's just, _busy_ , that's all. Busy doing really important things that he should have done _ages_ ago. He's poring over the maps of the peninsula, glasses sliding down his nose as he works. There's a notebook open beside him, but he hasn't written anything other than doodles for hours now. He takes his glasses off, putting them away and then he—very carefully—bangs his head off the desk. 

"Brendon," someone says, from the doorway. "What are you _doing_?"

Brendon whirls round in his chair, blinking. Spencer is leaning up against the door. "Did you forget something?" Brendon swallows, looking round the cabin wildly. His skin is prickling; he never thought he'd see Spencer again, and here he is, in Brendon's cabin in a pair of the softest looking white breeches Brendon thinks he's ever seen. He's wearing a shirt too, a white shirt that hangs loosely down over his skin-tight breeches, belted with a black leather belt that Brendon sort of wants to reach out and touch. 

"I was your hostage, Brendon," Spencer tells him patiently. "You brought me here in the clothes I was stood up in. What could I possibly have forgotten to take with me?"

Brendon's breath catches. His mind's a whirl. "What are you doing here, then? I thought you would have left to go back to Port Haven by now," he manages, standing up, and he can't meet Spencer's eyes. The weather is pretty calm but there's a tilt to the floor of the cabin that has to explain why Brendon's legs feel wobbly. 

"Brendon," Spencer says, again. "Look at me."

Brendon looks. Spencer's carrying a bag over one shoulder, and there's a case leaning up against his boot. Brendon swallows a breath; Spencer's wearing knee-high leather boots that _shine_. "You brought- stuff," Brendon says. "Why?"

"Are you an idiot, Brendon?" Spencer asks. 

Brendon shrugs his shoulders. "Maybe?" he says. 

Spencer sighs, and comes over to the table, where Brendon's got all his nautical maps spread out along with his pen and ink and compass. Spencer drops his bag down on top of the maps.

"Hey," Brendon protests, weakly. "I was using them." 

"You were not," Spencer says, kicking the cabin door shut. "That map is Portugal," he points, "and that one's of the Cornish peninsula." 

"I, um, might have been using them both," Brendon tells him. He might have been more distracted than he'd thought. Spencer had been gone a few days at most, and it felt like much, much longer.

Spencer undoes his belt. The leather's worn and old, but well looked after. Brendon can't resist the urge to touch it, and before he knows what he's doing, he's running his fingers over the soft leather in Spencer's hand. Spencer's hands are scrubbed clean, but the calluses from working onboard ship are still there. Brendon knows what they feel like against his skin and he swallows a groan. 

Spencer carefully folds the belt in half and drapes it over the back of the chair, and undoes the top button of his shirt. 

"What are you doing?" Brendon asks. His mouth is dry. 

"What does it look like?" Spencer says, undoing another button. 

Brendon bumps backwards into his bureau. "I um-"

Spencer looks at him for a long moment. "I've come back, Brendon," he says, softly. 

"But _why_?" Brendon asks, because he can't dare to hope, he can't, even though his skin is prickling and it's only by the skin of his teeth that he's stops himself from clutching at Spencer's shirt and begging him not to leave again. 

For a second, something like desperation shows on Spencer's face. He takes a step forward, reaches for Brendon's face, stops a hair's breadth away from his cheek. "I- I couldn't be somewhere you weren't," he says, in a low voice. 

Brendon can't breathe. "Spencer," he says, raggedly. "God-" 

"I've come back to stay, Brendon," Spencer says, "if you'll have me." 

He can't hear over the rushing in his ears. "Fuck, Spence," he says, moving forwards, and then Brendon's got his hands in Spencer's hair (so, so soft beneath his fingers) and he's kissing Spencer. "I'll have you."

Spencer's kissing him back, hands on Brendon's face, touching at his cheeks, his ears, his jaw. "Brendon, Bren, God-" he says, breathlessly, in between kisses. 

"I thought-" Brendon manages, "I thought you hated it here."

Spencer rests his forehead against Brendon's. He's breathing heavily and he grips Brendon's shoulders too hard. "I hated it _there_ ," he said. "I never told you. I hated everything but Ryan, and I've brought him with me now, so-"

Brendon raises his eyebrow. "You brought your best friend with you?" He peers over Spencer's shoulder. "Where is he?" 

"He's on deck. They're bringing my trunks on board."

Brendon says carefully, "Trunks?" 

"Trunks." Spencer kisses Brendon's mouth, smudges his thumb under Brendon's eye. Brendon's eyes are tired and bruised. "They'll bring them down to your quarters once we're done." 

"Done?" Brendon asks, against Spencer's mouth. 

Spencer cups Brendon's face in his hands. "New clothes, Brendon. Wait until you see Ryan's wardrobe-"

"Wardro-" Spencer cuts him off with a kiss. 

Brendon decides that new clothes are probably a great addition to the ship. 

"I want you on your knees," Spencer tells him, softly. He's hard, his erection pressing up against the soft white cotton of his breeches, nudging Brendon's thigh. 

Brendon bites at Spencer's bottom lip, smiling against his mouth. "Oh yes?" he says. 

Spencer nods. "On your knees." 

Brendon drops to his knees, his hands stroking down Spencer's chest, over his hips and down to his crotch. "Want me to blow you, Spencer Smith?" Brendon asks, softly. He touches at Spencer's ass, loving the feel of the cotton beneath his fingertips. He opens his mouth, breathing warm over the bulge in Spencer's pants. 

"No," Spencer says, with a smile. He tangles his fingers in Brendon's hair before running his thumb down his cheek, touching at his red, wet mouth with the pad of his thumb. Brendon licks at Spencer's thumb, but doesn't move. 

"What then?" he asks.

"I want," Spencer says, and Brendon can see the jut of Spencer's erection, the gentle rock of his hips. Brendon's own cock pushes against his breeches; he runs his hands down Spencer's thighs. Spencer takes a deep breath and smoothes Brendon's hair. "You're so pretty, Brendon," he says, almost to himself. 

Brendon presses his cheek to Spencer's thigh. He wonders what he looks like, on his knees before Spencer. His cock jumps at the thought. 

Spencer touches at his cheek. "I think you're wearing far too many clothes, Captain."

"So are you," Brendon says, with a grin, but his words are muffled against Spencer's soft breeches. He can't help it, he reaches for Spencer's boots, running his palm down the leather. His thumb catches at the laces. 

"I want to come on your face," Spencer says, his voice rough. 

Brendon's voice catches at the edges. "Yeah?" 

"I wanted to, before." he says, fingers touching at Brendon's cheek. "It was all I could think about. Is that, is that something you-"

Brendon stumbles up to his feet, pressing his mouth to Spencer's. "Yes," he says, desperately, "oh, fuck, yes." 

Spencer kisses him hard, pushing him back up against the bureau. Brendon kisses back, fingers in Spencer's hair, mouth open and tongue sliding along Spencer's, groaning somewhere deep inside. His cock throbs and he pushes up against Spencer's thigh. "Would you?" he manages, against Spencer's mouth. "I want you to," he says, "I want you to come on my face." 

Spencer bites at Brendon's lip. "Brendon-" he groans. 

Brendon nudges back, kissing him hard and desperate. He pulls away, struggling for breath, his cock aching. "Where do you want me?" he asks, cheeks pink. 

Spencer skin is flushed, his mouth a dark, wet red. "Will you-" he ducks forward, presses a kiss to Brendon's mouth. His fingers are shaking. "Undo my breeches, Brendon."

Brendon swallows, drops to his knees and reaches for Spencer's shirt, lifting it so he can get to the laces holding up Spencer's trousers. He undoes the knot with careful fingers, shooting a glance up at Spencer's face. Spencer has his head tipped back and his eyes closed. Brendon's breath catches in his throat. 

"There," Brendon says, tugging carefully at Spencer's breeches till the laces loosen and they fall open, Brendon helping them down and over Spencer's cock. He isn't wearing underwear and Brendon can't breathe. "Spence," he manages. "Spencer."

"Undo yours," Spencer says, tightly. He doesn't touch himself, and his hands hang by his sides. 

Brendon stumbles up to his knees and untucks his shirt. He pulls off his jacket and the leather pouch he keeps his telescope. He drops them onto the floor, coat pillowing the pouch so it doesn't roll with the movement of the ship. His belt—leather and heavy with pockets—he just undoes the buckle and lets it fall. He carefully undoes the lace holding his breeches up and looks up at Spencer. 

Spencer is looking down at him, biting his lip. "Yes," Spencer tells him, and his voice maybe shakes, "keep going." 

Brendon licks his lips and none-so-carefully pulls his breeches down and over his erection, then his underwear. They're pooled on the floor by his knees. 

"God," Spencer breathes, and then he's spitting in his palm and closing his fist loosely around his cock. He bites at his lip. "Undo the top button of your shirt, Brendon."

"Like this?" Brendon asks, slowly pulling his shirt open, one button, then another.

"Stop," Spencer says, jerking himself off. "Touch your neck."

Brendon's breath hitches. He tilts his head back so his neck is exposed. He's sunburnt down to the collar of his shirt and his fingers touch at the pale skin of his collarbone, the darker, sun-roughened skin in the curve of his neck. "Is this what you like, Spencer?" he asks, "is this what you were thinking about?"

Spencer runs the thumb of his other hand across the tip of his cock. He holds his hand out for Brendon to lick. 

Brendon obligingly takes Spencer's thumb into his mouth, licking at it gently. He can't miss Spencer's tight intake of breath, the way his fist slides faster up and down his cock. 

"Another button," Spencer says, his voice dry, his breathing loud. "You're so hot, Brendon."

Brendon undoes another button and touches at the bare skin of his chest with his palm. He pulls at the fabric so he can reach his nipples; they're hard and pebbled and he rubs them with the heel of his hand, biting back a gasp. 

Spencer's hips buck; he leans forward to steady himself on the bureau. His cock touches at Brendon's cheek. 

Brendon groans. 

"More," Spencer tells him, his voice catching. "I want to see your chest, your cock-"

Brendon pulls open the remaining buttons, letting his shirt hang off his shoulders and pool down by his elbows. "Like this, Spencer, is this how you want me?" His cock is hard, his hips arching up. He touches at his mouth before running his fingers down over his jaw, his neck, his nipples, his stomach, his thighs, his erection.

"Yes," Spencer says, tightly, and he's fisting his cock right by Brendon's face. Spencer's skin is flushed, his breath coming hot and heavy. He smells like anticipation and desire. 

Brendon's mouth is dry with want, with need, with desperation. His skin is pebbled, burning hot to the touch, sweat gleaming across his forehead. He needs to do _something_ , he can't- he needs to touch himself. "Can I-" he starts, his hand hovering over his erection. 

Spencer gasps back a groan. "Yes," he nods, " _yes_. Brendon, god, yes." 

Brendon spits in his palm. He closes his hand around his erection, letting out a sigh of relief as he squeezes, before starting to move. 

"Did you," Spencer asks, and Brendon can't take his eyes off him, skin flushed and eyes dark and- "When I was gone, Brendon. Did you touch yourself?"

"Yeah," Brendon says tightly, thumb sweeping over the tip of his cock. "I couldn't sleep, I kept thinking about you. Hard and naked."

"Me too." Spencer's gasping for breath, fisting his cock by Brendon's face. "Every time I closed my eyes you were there, on your knees in front of me. You're amazing, do you even know that?"

"Spencer," Brendon groans. 

"I'm close," Spencer tells him, his breath hitching. "So close, Brendon-"

"Come on," Brendon says, "Please, I want you to, please. Come on my face."

"I'm going to-" Spencer's voice catches, "So hot. Fuck, Bren, fuck-" 

He comes, hot and dirty, on Brendon's cheek and mouth and chin and ear and hair. His fingers are smearing across Brendon's face even before he's jerked himself through the comedown, splashes of come landing on Brendon's thigh. 

"God," Brendon manages, as Spencer stumbles to his knees, fingers touching at Brendon's face. 

"Brendon," Spencer groans, "please." He presses his mouth to Brendon's, open-mouthed and wet. 

Brendon arches up, hips bucking, the tip of his cock smearing across Spencer's stomach. 

Spencer cups Brendon's face in his hands. "Brendon," he says, kissing him again. "I can't be somewhere you're not," he says, words catching. His skin is flushed pink. "Come on, Brendon. Look at you, you're so hot. Come for me."

And Brendon does, shattering apart and coming against Spencer's stomach, his cock, his thighs. His head falls forward, onto Spencer's shoulder, and Spencer wraps his arms around Brendon's shaking shoulders. 

After a while, Spencer hooks his arm under Brendon's arm and helps him up and back onto the bed. They struggle with the laces on their boots, kicking them off and then peeling off their breeches. 

"Why are these things so tight?Brendon grumbles, and Spencer grins. 

"Because you know you've got a great ass, I think." 

Brendon beams, kicking his trousers onto the floor and sticking his ass in the air. "I do, don't I?" 

Spencer swats him with his shirt and climbs into bed after him. 

"Don't you dare fucking leave me again," Brendon tells him after a while. Spencer's head is pillowed on Brendon's shoulder. Brendon kisses the top of Spencer's head, and Spencer rubs his thumb over Brendon's nipple. 

"Not going anywhere," Spencer tells him. "Although I'd better have a pretty good job title, something that makes it worth my while sticking around."

"Cabin boy?" Brendon suggests. 

Spencer kicks him in the shin. "I was thinking... co-captain?"

Brendon pokes him in the ribs. "There's only one captain on this pirate ship, and it's me. First mate?"

Spencer narrows his eyes. "First mate?" 

"It's a pretty cool role," Brendon tells him. "You'd get to share a cabin with a pirate captain, for a start."

"Is that it?" He mouths gently at Brendon's skin, catching it in his teeth and nipping. 

"You get your own telescope." 

"What about a hat?"

Brendon blinks. "Done."

"Good," Spencer tells him, sleepily. "That's settled then." 

~*~

Epilogue. Ryan and Jon bicker and sword fight and they decorate the ship in paisley and Ryan takes over the job of sail mender, only after a while the sails begin to take on a bit of a patchwork medley. They go party with MCR and Ashlee and FOB and sail off into the sunset in search of treasure. 

[END]

[Except for the bits and pieces about Brendon and Spencer bringing up the baby dragons]


End file.
